Tag Archives: marathon

New York City Marathon Training: 55 Days Out

Screen shot 2013-09-09 at 3.20.59 PM.png

I continue to be fascinated with how DailyMile picks the adjective to describe one’s training, since I’ve gotten epic even on relatively low-mileage weeks. Also, I usually take these screenshots from the web version, and my email said my training was “impressive.”

Welcome to the inside of my brain. It’s kinda weird in here.

Whether DailyMile thinks I had an impressive or epic week or not, I’m happy with the positive trend my training is continuing to take.

Let’s take a look.

Monday: traveling back from Maine and was in a car for a million hours. Good day for a rest day.

Tuesday: Jess put together a fun group workout in the park, where I saw buddies GB, Emily (by saw, I mean dragged) and Brittany. We did a mile warm-up, then did some drills (high knees, butt kicks, lateral shuffling and skipping. Emily, a former cheerleader, was awesome at the skipping.)(Love you, friend!) After that, we did 10 hill repeats on a nice jerkface hill in the park. They were really freaking hard, but hurt-so-good hard. No idea of distance or pace since my Garmin and I were not on speaking terms, but it was a short, intense workout. I later asked Jess if she knew the mileage, and she said she wasn’t sure, so I’m just going to assume it was probably something like 10 miles. In an hour. You know, fastest 10 miles of my life. We finished with some more of those drills and then some great stretches, which I cannot remember because I was COMPLETELY run-dumb by that point.

201309091651.jpg

Wednesday: The day I totally fell back in love with mid-week running. I had 6 easy miles on my schedule and an AM dentist appointment, so I ran to the dentist. (Sorry, dentist.) The weather was freaking perfect, my pace felt good and a lot less like a slog, and I was a very happy lady.

Thursday: Uplift with Chelsea to lift things up and put them down. Awesome class, as always.

Friday: SoulCycle with Kirk, because my buddy Mary has been telling me to take his class, and I had a XT day on my schedule. Kirk did not disappoint!

201309091656.jpg

Saturday: 18 magical miles. I was really happy that, despite not going easy on my legs on Thursday and Friday, they felt pretty good for most of the run and moved at a pace I was very happy with.

Sunday: Turns out an oyster dinner is not adequate for celebrating a friend’s birthday afterwards, and I felt my brain sloshing around on my recovery miles yesterday. Recovery in multiple senses of the word, but I got 4 miles in as per my plan.

Still no yoga, but I got the lifting, XT and all of my runs in. I’m happy with that. I’ve also entered the part of marathon training where my brain basically just keeps running between: MARATHON RUNNING COMPRESSION SOCKS FOAM ROLLING on repeat, which is always a good sign for my running, if not for my sanity.

How was your week of training?

Change in Plans: NYCM or Bust!

This is my fourth marathon training cycle and probably my toughest one yet both physically and mentally.

July was really freaking hot, and some personal stuff zapped much of my motivation. Some days, even just the idea of going for a short walk with Bailey seemed insurmountable.

And then I started getting knee pain.

I started doing a lot of thinking. Why was I running this marathon? Was this something I really wanted to do? Was my heart still in this? I kept training while I worked through these thoughts, hoping I’d come to some sort of answer.

new-york-city-marathon-2010.jpg.jpg

And earlier this week, it did. I saw that the deadline to defer Wineglass registration was August 4, and I knew immediately what I had to do: defer. Sure, I still could run a marathon eight weeks from now, but could I run the marathon that I want to run? That I feel strong, kick ass at and shatter all my goals at? I didn’t think so, so I decided to defer and make the New York City Marathon my goal race. (I magically got in through the lottery and originally was going to run it “for fun.”)

Yeah, it’s a tougher race, but I’ve run it before and know what to expect. I fully expect to be entirely endorphin-WASTED for 26.2 miles, smiling my face off the entire time. Tina, you’re going to come run it with me, right?

Completely apropos of nothing, I found out last night that my hometown is having its first half-marathon this year!!! 9/29, Franklin Lakes. I’m obviously doing it. Let me know if you want to do it too!

Have you ever changed your goal race before or changed your training plan halfway through because it wasn’t working? Big thanks to Jess for changing around my training plan to accommodate my new goal race.

Also, I’ve picked a winner for my Philly Half giveaway using the pick giveaway winner plugin. I wish I could have given all of you a bib! There were some awesome comments and bucket list races.


natalie.jpg.jpg


Screen shot 2013-08-04 at 6.47.21 PM.png