Bad Blogger

When I first started training for the marathon, I swore I would consistently update my blog. Turns out I am the worst!! Believe me, it wasn’t by choice—there is just way too much going on during the summer! But to give you a brief synopsis, July was a tough month. It started off well. Conquering between 8 and 10 miles was a piece of cake. To be quite honest, I wasn’t nervous about getting to 26. THEN things started to change. It started with the Naples New York Park to Park race. Thanks to the NYC MTA I was a half hour late for the start of the race and rattled until I was ¼ of the way through. Then, I had the George Washington Bridge run during which the heat and hills humbled me (mind you, our coaches didn’t count the run back and forth over the bridge towards our mileage--that was just our warm-up!). Most recently, I attempted to run 14 miles in familiar Central Park. The results were less than stellar. The positive side to all of this is that I am more focused on training and have developed a healthy respect for running in 80+ degree weather. Hopefully in August I can get my swagger back =)

Best Race Ever

After spending all day at the BK Hip Hop festival, the last thing I wanted to do was wake up at 6:20 AM on a Sunday to run a 5 mile race. But that's exacly what I did, and I ended up runnning my best NY Road Runners race ever (9:35 per mile)! Apparently staying out until 2:30 AM is a good thing to do on race day. To be honest, I was completely surprised, especially since the last pacing group I ran with was set at 12 mintues/mile. OK...so I've only run one other NYRR race, but I had a 22% improvement in my pace per mile!!! Not to mention myfirst race was only 4 miles and in 2003. So, you wonder how much time I cut during my 40 minute run this evening??? None whatsoever; I could only muster 3.5 miles. I was DYING and wanted to call it quits the whole time but decided to keep going. I'll just chalk up tonight's practice as an excercise in mental toughness. This actually should come in handy because my next run is set for Wednesday, and it's going to be HOT. This is what I get for deciding to train for a marathon in the middle of summer!

Bad Karma?!?!?!

So I skipped out on today's training practice because I had tickets to the Mets/ Twins game. I think this resulted in some sort of bad karma because the Mets got their buts kicked...9-0! Serves me right! Not to worry, I fully intend to make up for the training tomorrow. So far, I've been good about maintaining my runs on my own. I ran on Monday night and did a fairly decent job. I'm trying to get used to this new thing called pacing...where one runs at the same rate for an extended period of time. Apparently this is what you're supposed to do you when you go for long runs - who knew?

BTW, I need to give a HUGE shout out to the best buds (and married couple) in the world - Jackie and Mike Hoahing. Not only did they submit my first on-line donation, but they are in the lead for the largest contributors to date!!! THANKS SO MUCH!

Also, a slightly smaller but no less significant thank you to Karen McCloskey for all your help with getting my fundraising on the way. I definitely owe you a pint!