I have been in freakout mode pretty much all day today. It started with my friend’s dog getting sick. (he’ll be ok. Apparently ingested something toxic) Duncan sent him a note on Facebook…

I went to the NYC Marathon Expo on my lunch break to get my bib and shirt. I cried again. But this year my tears were happy tears. Sometimes I just have to take a step back and realize how lucky I am. I mean, this is one of the World Marathon Majors! And this will be my second time running!

Run happy!

I bumped into this girl which was really exciting.

International event = Welcome in lots of languages

I hit up the pace table and confirmed that both the 4:45 and the 5:00 pacers will be just a few corrals behind me. So Sunday morning I’ll decide which one to stick with (or at least start out with). While I don’t have a time goal I know I’m capable of a 4:48 marathon and I just want to beat my 2011 NYC Marathon time of 5:28. So that’s a big gap. We shall see.

I went back to work and tried to relax. I just kept saying “Take a chill pill Sally!”.

Meanwhile I went to my mailbox yesterday and this was in there:

runner girl magnet

No, not the doodle, the car magnet. It’s an exact replacement of the Runner Girl magnet that became a casualty at the car wash I mentioned back in this post. One of my loyal readers and FaceBook friends sent it to me as a birthday gift. How cool right?! Thanks Valerie!!!

Question: Any great suggestions for handling nerves? 

Happy Sunday! This day has flown by!

It started out just like yesterday. It was a bit like Groundhog’s Day…

doodle giving a little attitude for being woken up so early and pre-race coffee requirement being met

I arrived at the Staten Island Half Marathon race day packet pickup at 6:30am Parked my car and headed over to the start village area. It was DARK and they were still setting up. These banners eventually got hung…

banners waiting to be hung

Used the flash on my phone to illuminate the “S” box so that the volunteer could locate my bib…

“S” is for Sweat Out the Small Stuff =)

and then picked up my race tee (I ended up getting 2 on accident….they were stuck together….SCORE!). I made a quick pitstop back to my car to drop the race tees and pin my race number on my pants, grab a bottle of water and then I started out on my pre race miles…

Three miles in I took a path into a park that has a great view of the Verrazano Bridge. (yes I know! I’m obsessed with my overpriced-toll-suspension-bridge. It’s unhealthy.)

First time I ever used the Kelvin filter with Instagram….

I followed the same route back to my car and managed to get about 6 1/2 pre-race miles. My goal today was to try and keep a pace in the 11 to 11:30 minute mile. I stayed at 11:15 for those pre-race miles. Things were right on target. Met up briefly with my running peeps before we all split up to head to our appropriate corrals.

love these peeps

I won’t go into boring detail about every mile of the race. It went smooth and I kept my 11:15 pace for the entire half. At one point the leading men were running past us in the opposite direction. I quickly pulled out my camera to snap pics. The 1st place dude was so fast that I didn’t get his pic. But I got a great shot of the 2nd place dude (I looked up his results and he did indeed hold the 2nd place spot…

As I was entering the final chute to the finish I thought it would be kinda cool to video it. I’ve never done that before. The footage is quite shakey but I was excited that they annouced my name as I finished. And unbeknownst to me my running peeps were on the sidelines and Lisa took a photo of me. When I watched the video I saw that I actually videotaped her! We’re just meant to be.

Here’s the pic she took of me…

And here’s a still shot from the video where you can see her taking the pic…

and here’s the non-award-winning video…

20 miles done! And now it’s TAPER TIME!

After I finished I jogged back to the parking lot and did a few laps until I hit the 20 mile mark and then went back to my car (running peeps hopped on the Staten Island Ferry to head back to Manhattan) and stretched for a bit. I knew I’d have a good 40 minutes before the roads would be reopened and all of a sudden I realized I was STARVING! 20 miles and I had probably only eaten about 500 calories…I scraped up a few bucks in my car and went into the ferry terminal to get a nice hot slice of pizza! So good!

YUM!

Then kicked back and patiently waited….

stretching

Finally they let us out and I headed home. My final half time was 2:27 and my final 20 mile time was 3:45 giving me an average pace of 11:15! My A) goal for the NYC Marathon is 5:15 which is a 12 minute pace. I think I’m right on target (which means I probably just jinxed myself).

I want to give a shout out to Mike who set a shiny new half marathon PR at 1:46! WORD! I was so grateful to him yesterday for pacing me to a 10K PR that this made me happy.

I bought a new pair of earbuds yesterday at Walgreens and decided to give them a test today so I’ll know if they will work for the NYC Marathon.

iHome FIT ear buds get a big thumbs up

They get my seal of approval. I didn’t use the extra hook pieces that go behind the year but they never fell out. The only issue is they are so snug that people were asking me questions and I couldn’t hear what they were saying. I’m going to make sure not to wear both at NYC Marathon. Keeping one ear free should allow me to hear better.

All in all it was a great running weekend. Unfortunately not much else was accomplished. Well I did take the doodle on a walk with his Dogue friends (and my human friend)

Duncan and Athena and Zeus A.K.A. the Dogues

and last night I made a quick visit to another friends house where her boxer Chance and the doodle got to have a riveting play date…

And I also treated myself to a plate of my favorite cookies…

I’ll let you in on a secret. I cried both yesterday and today. Just a brief moment each morning while driving to my race destination where I just got all fuh-klempt. There’s something about the journey of training for marathons that really opens up the emotions. I become overly grateful for everything. So now I’m officially beginning my taper period that will last 3 weeks until marathon day. I’ll try and focus everything that has taken a back seat the last few months. which is basically EVERYTHING!

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

Question: What is your favorite type of cookie?

Happy Monday!

As I was winding down last night and preparing myself for the work week, I made a big decision. I was feeling really tired and have been for quite some time. I’m sure it’s a combination of post Center of the Nation and just jumping right back into my NYC Marathon training when I returned home.

65.5 miles plus a whole lotta jumping = FATIGUE

After reviewing my training log, it looks like I have been overtraining. Shocker! It’s not that I have been running that many more miles per week than I’m scheduled to. But I have had many extra long runs, and I’ve been bailing on plenty of short, recovery runs. Not to mention my cross training has been non-existent (unless you consider walking the dog cross training). In other words, don’t ever take my advice on this blog =) There was a 16 miler back in June when I didn’t even officially kick off my training until July. And then of course five 13.1s in a row doesn’t make for smart training. But I knew that going into it. So this week I’ve decided to replace my 2 weekday runs with easier 30 min cross training sessions at the gym. That will allow me to catch up a a few extra winks of sleep (I can squeeze the gym in at lunch) and give my running leg muscles a little mini-taper. I have the Rock ‘n’ Roll Brooklyn 10k on Saturday and the Staten Island half marathon (with 7 extra miles before) on Sunday, totaling 26 miles for the weekend!

This decision comes with the comfort knowing I’m not a newbie anymore.

I’ve got 3 marathons under my belt and I know that I won’t sacrifice my entire training by replacing 2 workouts. Also, I’ve thought long and hard about my expectations and goals for the NYC Marathon. While I wish I could say I’m shooting for a PR, that is just totally unrealistic. The course isn’t an easy one. There are 5 bridges and lots of elevation.

My first NYC Marathon was 5:28. It was my first marathon and I walked A LOT of the second half. I was SOOO happy just to finish.

Thumbs up! I didn’t die!

My PR is a 4:48 on a very flat course (with perfect weather). That’s a HUGE finish time range. I think I will just keep my expectations set to try and come in under the 5:28 time. While I’d love to break 5 hours again, I just don’t feel confident I have it in me. So my “A” goal would be 5:15 and “B” goal would be 5:25. But regardless of my finish time I am looking forward to enjoying the afternoon with close to 50,000 others.

I hadn’t planned on participating in any other races for the year but at the last minute I  just signed up for one more half marathon just 6 days after the NYC Marathon. It’s probably not a smart idea, but i’ll chalk 2013 up to the year of running too many races and make a promise that next year I’ll scale back a bit. My wallet and my non-running friends will be happy. So, I’ll be running the Trenton Half Marathon on 11/9.

I love bridges and this course has 2! photo courtesy of trentonhalf.com

I learned about this race from a girl I met while training for the NJ Marathon at the very beginning of this year. Her name is Jane and she is an ambassador for this event. We had such great training runs together I just knew I needed to run with her one more time this year (although I’ll probably only see her the first half a mile as I’m sure she’ll be blazing ahead while my tired legs will probably just chug along). And the swag/bling looks pretty awesome too:

photo courtesy of trentonhalf.com

So there you have it! My plan to fight the training fatigue and complete 2 really strong runs next weekend, my goals verbalized for the NYC Marathon, and my “lapse-in-judgement-just-for-the-bling” registration in what will be my 11th half marathon of the year and 17th event overall!

WOW: Listen to your body! You’ll know when to scale back and when to go for the gusto! You are your own best training tool. 

Question: Tell me all about your fall race calendar.

Good morning!

My plan had a couple of snags this morning but I still managed to complete 14 miles.
Snag 1: No sunshine = no glorious sunrise. I surprised myself and only sulked for the first mile. It actually drizzled the entire time I was running but that actually ended up being a beautiful thing! Cool and misty = better running weather.
Snag 2: The entrance (and parking lot) where I usually start my run was closed because of the government shutdown. It’s a National park area:(

But like a die-hard-happy-marathon-runner-in-training I managed to work around the snags. I decided I would just run the neighborhood streets that run parallel to the beach. But after a 2 mile detour I arrived to see that the boardwalk was open! It was just the small area by where I start that was closed. It appears that the boardwalk is state/city. So I hopped on and covered an additional 10 miles doing 2 complete out and backs of the boardwalk. Unfortunately my main goal for this run was to see a gorgeous sunrise and to see the Verrazano Bridge (a.k.a. start village for the NYC Marathon) and get jazzed since the NYC Marathon is just 4 weeks away. #Fail!

As you can tell from this side by side visibility was in the toilet

it really was a bummer not to see the bridge. I needed to reinforce that with another pout

beauty without the sun. I love the horizontal “stripes” made up of the gray sky, the bluish gray water, the reddish sand, the golden sand dunes and the rusty metal railing.

I ended up seeing a beautiful color palette of “neutrals”. I’m actually thinking that I should paint the interior of my home in these colors. They feel calm and soothing, no? I also gave warning to the wild turkeys that it’s October. I don’t know if they know that Thanksgiving is next month. Just wanted to remind them to hide so they don’t end up as part of some family’s feast.

FYI: Thanksgiving is just 6 weeks away!

Old-school sand art

Spent a few minutes playing in the sand. Then it was the same 2 mile detour back to my car and voila, I was done. I ate an apple in the car on the way home.

After a quick shower, it was time for some serious refueling. A bed of spinach, 2 scrambled eggs, 1/2 cup of whole wheat couscous, a sliced up tomato and 5 glorious slices of turkey bacon. And a tall cold beer glass of chocolate milk to wash it down. Total calories: 850. But most of all lots of protein.

chocolate milk and a jealous doodle • turkey bacon, eggs etc and a jealous doodle

I love that while the rest of the world slept in on a drizzly Sunday, I didn’t. OK well maybe I don’t love that. I actually miss the days of sleeping in. But that’s what the last 6 weeks of the year are for. I take a hiatus from running usually from 11/15 until 1/1.

Question: Do you like to sleep in or do you wake up early regardless?