Tag Archives: marathon training

Making the Best of It

I went to sleep ridiculously overtired and cranky last night after a really fun weekend in Philly.

I woke up this morning determined to make the best of the day. Life is what you make of it, and I decided that I was going to make the best of it.

For the next three days, I have a job. I don’t know what will happen after that, but for now, I’m employed at a contract gig where I’m becoming a stronger writer and editor every day and learning more about the beauty and fashion industry. I will not be unemployed forever.

I’m training for a marathon and becoming stronger every day.

I chose to carry that attitude with me all day, and I had a great day. The kind where nothing special happened, but it was great anyway.

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I had my favorite breakfast (sunflower butter + banana on a bagel thin.)

And my favorite lunch.

When I got out of work, I was excited to come home and run four miles. When you’re marathon training, four miles feels like nothing. It’s funny how perception changes. Two and a half years ago, I could barely run a mile.

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I ran along the High Line and the Hudson, rocking out to my top 25 most-played songs on my iPhone.

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And then I came home, and, inspired by a weekend of being around food bloggers, made a little stir fry.

I sat through a really interesting session on recipe-writing by Stepfanie from SparkPeople this weekend, but unfortunately for you, I don’t really consider my creations recipe-worthy. They’re more like stuff-I-throw-in-pans-and-then-move-to-bowls.

This dinner was a good one, though: soba noodles with stir-fry vegetables (yes, I bought the lazy girl pre-cut veggies), chicken, a splash of coconut milk, soy sauce, ginger zest and sesame oil.

How are you going to make the best of it this week?

The Best Part of Marathon Training

As I unlocked my boy Bruiser from the bike rack this morning and hoisted his bulky aluminum frame over my shoulders, I realized something.

I’m in the best part of marathon training right now.

Gone are the weeks where my long runs are still in the single digits. Don’t get me wrong, any run is still an accomplishment, but I found it hard getting excited for an 8-mile run. It was just long enough to feel long but not long enough to feel like I was really accomplishing something.

I wasn’t looking forward to training for this marathon when I started, but I was looking forward to the marathon itself. Over the past few weeks, as I crushed half-marathons and long runs, I started seeing my strength in a way you don’t see it in single-digit runs.

I look forward to my runs now. All of them. From the short three-milers to the long 20-milers that I know are coming soon, I’m excited. Each one of these runs has a purpose, and that is to prepare me for the NYC Marathon.

I realized that this morning as I cruised (by cruise, I mean pedaled as fast I could which is still not that fast) down the Hudson River Path and back for some cross-training. While triathlon training (and I use the word “training” very loosely to describe how I prepared), I would look at the runners on the path and be so glad to be biking. Today, it was the other way around.

Or maybe I’m still riding that post-PR glow.

What is your favorite part of race training? The beginning, the middle, or the taper? (If you say taper, you’re crazy. That’s the most stressful part of any race.) Also, what’s your favorite distance to run? I’m pretty sure mine is the half-marathon distance. But you knew that. My favorite short distance is 4. It’s a nice round number.