Saturday, October 29, 2016

The Seventy Five Percent Club...

This morning I ran my final long run. Most of my usual weekend running group were missing because of races (Halloween Half Marathons and the Marine Corps Marathon); so that just left Jani and me to try and tackle 8 miles...

And now that my long run is done I can proceed with my plans for the rest of the weekend...

Thursday, October 27, 2016

A Million Eye Rolls...

I was doing a routine scroll through my Instagram (IG) feed the other day and came across a runner who was lamenting about the "excruciatingly slow" pace of his last run. It was around an 8:30min/mile pace. And he was "devastated".

I totally get it. I would be devastated if I ran an 8:30 pace too; since the only way that would happen is if I died... (and then got reincarnated and came back as a fast runner)
On some level I understand not being excited about how you performed on a run. I mean, if you normally run a 5-6min/mile pace then 8:30 will feel slow. I'm just not sure "devastation" is a necessary emotion for anyone that runs a sub-10 minute mile (unless you're a professional/sponsored athlete at risk of losing all your funding and not being able to feed your children...or buy new running shoes).

I mean, no one wants to run slower. The goal is always to get better right? And for some people (dare I say most people) that means running faster...

Sunday, October 23, 2016

The Taper...

I am tapering, I promise. But, yesterday was the ZOOMA Amelia Island Half Marathon and I'm a ZOOMA Race Ambassador. So obviously I had to do it...

Unfortunately I wasn't able to travel up to north Florida for the race on Saturday morning because I spent all day Thursday and Friday course directing an advanced trauma nursing course...

So instead of being able to enjoy all the festivities of the event I ran the race virtually...

Saturday, October 15, 2016

The Last Long Run...

This morning I ran 21 miles as my last really long run before the NY Marathon...

I ran the first 16 with my friends Mary and Will...

And then I ran the last 5 miles with Will (Will is also running NY). We decided to do loops (since it's so much easier to refuel that way) but because I don't pause my watch on the really long runs (or at least I try not to because I can't figure out how to turn off the auto save feature on Garmin) our two stops for refueling messed up my splits...

Sunday, October 9, 2016

The Weekend...

Well I did my half marathon training run this morning...

I broke it up into two segments because I was running at different times with different friends. The first 5 miles were with Jani, and we started at 4:30am...

Then as we finished the 5 miles I joined Mary and Andy and ran 8.1 miles with them...

Friday, October 7, 2016

When You Have Less Than Thirty Days...

I woke up this morning and realized that I'm at the "less than thirty" point in my marathon training...

So, with that looming over my head (and Hurricane Matthew out of the way) I decided to go for a run...

It's been a while since I've been able to run at a sub-12 min/mile pace for five miles, especially since I included some "hill work" in this run...

It's not much of an elevation but this is the closest I'm able to get to hill work right now. Where I live is as flat as a pancake and the highway overpass near my house is the closest thing I have to a hill. 

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Thirty Two...

While the rest of the city goes into panic mode and finishes all the gas at the local gas stations, I'm monitoring Hurricane Matthew primarily to figure out how many of my training runs will have to be rescheduled due to storm conditions...
"Please let the weather be good. Please let the weather be good. Please let the weather be good"

It's not surprising that I'm still focused on running and marathon training because apparently that's all I talk about...
(and considering how often I mention Garmin I'm surprised they haven't made me a brand ambassador yet... 
even after I wrote them such a lovely letter).

In thirty two days I'll be running through the boroughs of New York City, taking in the sights and sounds of the Big Apple, and hoping that my training and the last several months of preparations will get me through the race injury free. 

Sunday, October 2, 2016

The Second Half of the Chicagoland Series {Chicago Half Marathon Race Recap}

Race morning started pretty early (as usual I guess) with a 5am Uber pick up from the hotel. We drove about 30 minutes to the race site (or as close as we could get) and then walked about a block and a half to the closest corral where we could see other runners waiting. My mom, sister and I joined them...

We knew it was going to be a long morning. It was around 5:45 am and the race didn't start until 7am (for Sanya and me) and 7:45am (for my mom who was doing the 5K). But the time seemed to pass by quickly and we eventually exchanged good luck hugs with my mom, then Sanya and I went to find our corral.