Almost There!

At this point, I am less than 5 weeks away from the marathon. A couple of days ago, the official ING NYC Marathon handbook arrived in the mail. This book has all sorts of info on the start, the expo in the days leading up to the race, etc. I'm getting so pumped up . . . I can't wait.

My entire family will be in NYC to watch me run, and I know that I'll have friends throughout the course.

I've been working hard to keep the mileage up and have been running some shorter runs fast and keeping up with the longer runs. I've even been dropping times on the longer runs, doing some of my 12 milers at an 8:20 pace or so!

Lately I've been feeling good, slimming down, and enjoying running a ton. I've got a new pair of shoes in the back of the closet ready to spring into action soon, I've got my tub'o'gatorade that I've been drinking in anticipation of the race, and I'm pretty much all set with BodyGlide for a while. I'm really getting psyched!

Oy! 600 Miles?!?!?!

First of all. I'm sorry. I haven't posted in about a million years . . . but between managing my running schedule and getting back into the first few weeks of school, I've been swamped. The start of school always seems to involve a lot of evening events and stuff and I'm just been super busy.

BUT the running's been going really well. As of my last post I hadn't yet even run 20 miles, but I did my 20 mile training run in Central Park two weeks ago now and it went really well. I ended up running at about an 8:45 pace . . . which was great.

But here I am, having not posted in ages, and I have slipped past the 600 mile mark! I'm almost up to 300 miles on my "new" shoes and I've already got another pair waiting in the wings for me.

Yesterday I went out on my longest run yet, 21 miles. My 20 miler two weeks earlier was made easier by the fact that I did an organized training run in the park with water, etc. This time I was a little nervous b/c I was on my own . . . but Sara came to the rescue, agreeing to ride her new bike along side me for 3 hours while I ran. We did get separated once (my fault) but I have to say, having Sara along with me made all the difference in the world. She held my water, Gu, and Gatorade and all I had to do was run, it was great. I had originally hoped to try to run 22 miles, which is two miles further than my schedule called for, but it just wasn't in the cards. I was hurting by the end there . . . so I stopped a bit past the 21 mile mark. Oh well. I'm confident that I'll manage to handle the marathon nevertheless.

In other news, it is looking like ALOT of my family and friends are going to come out to watch the Marathon in November which is really exciting! I am really gearing up for this and my mileage is peaking now. I have one more 40 mile week before I begin to taper and then the countdown really begins!! Yay.

Whoops!

I'm not sure how this happened, but I let the 500 mile mark pass without fanfare. So consider the fare fanned. I'm already up to 513.

Today was a beautiful 12 in the park. I ran really quickly for a long run, 8:16 pace!

Next week is a 20 miler!

It's Pouring

Well, school has started and already it's pouring. I had a VERY busy first day of school and felt like the work kept rushing in.

On Saturday I was going to swap my long run for Sunday and only do 4 miles. Instead I did ZERO miles. Today was the first day that I didn't run a scheduled run during my entire marathon training schedule. This is a major bummer.

On Friday I decided that b/c Hurricane Hanna was due in NYC on Saturday, I'd leave the long run till Sunday. But come Saturday I never got around to running. I was a lazy slob.

Sunday I'm supposed to run 12, but I might tack on a couple of extra miles to make it 14 so that I'm only 2 miles short this week. Shame on me.

Floating Along

What a week. On Sunday night I went out to dinner with Sara's family and when I woke up Monday, we were all sick. On Monday my temperature reached 102 degrees and I was stuck in the terrible purgatory between really hot and freezing cold. It was one of three things that made me sick on Monday:
(a) Sunday night's Indian food
(b) Hanging out with a sick 10 month old
(c) The onset of the Republican National Convention.

My money's on (c).

In any case I was feeling better Tuesday morning, so I decided that I'd go on the Senior Leadership Retreat as planned. We were to go white water rafting on the Delaware River about two hours north of NYC. It was a blast. I was able to float along down the river with some great kids from the class of 2009 and really enjoy myself.

While with the kids I was able to get a short 4 miler in, but I didn't feel great b/c it was the day after my temp was so high. I think that the physical illness was aggravated by my anxiousness about the fact that the Republicans were nominating a self-declared "pit-bull w/ lipstick" to be their Vice-Presidential nominee while I was out of touch with any mainstream media.

On Wednesday, I was able to get a quick 5 miler in after returning home, and today I ran a nice 6 at a decent pace. Even though I've been getting all of my miles in, lately I feel like I've just been floating along . . . I have been squeezing my runs in when I can instead of really taking time to stretch, warm up, and focus on good runs. I haven't been planning and I've been pacing myself indiscriminately. I'm worried that I'm slowing down a bit. I'm hoping I can focus a bit more on getting in some faster tempo runs and not worry about pace so much on the 6s and long runs.

Tomorrow is the first day of school.