NYCM Week #6: Hitting a major milestone

Week #6 of marathon training was a big success for me for a couple of reasons: I did all of my scheduled runs on the appropriate days for the first time in a few weeks, and because I hit an important weekly milestone for the first time. I originally had 49 miles on my schedule, but a couple of running friends inspired me to have another idea...

Monday
Scheduled Rest Day

Tuesday
Tempo Run: 9 miles w/ 5 @ 15K - HM pace

The weather cooperated pretty well this week, and my tempo run was very enjoyable. It was the first one in which I didn't utilize the reservoir at all. At first, my legs felt sluggish and I wondered how I would get fast enough to hit my paces, but as always, once the garmin beeped, I managed to take off and monitor my watch very carefully. I took a two second break to fuel in the middle, but otherwise, the tempo miles went off without a hitch. My legs were tired, and mile 8 felt went very slowly, but by mile 9, they had mostly recovered. 



Wednesday
Medium Long Run: 12 Miles

I knew that in order for me to get to work in a timely fashion, I would have to get out of the apartment at 5:15am. I also knew that I wasn't the most efficient at getting out of bed that early. So I decided to go to sleep in my running clothes in hopes that I would get out quicker, and for the most part, I did. After a couple of minutes of waiting for my Garmin, I got the signal, and I was off. 

I felt very sluggish for the first half of my run, and it's clearly reflected in my paces. But after fueling mid run, my energy levels immediately increased and I was able to speed up, and even had my fastest two miles at the very end. 






Thursday
Easy Run: 7 Miles

This was supposed to be an easy 6 mile run, but once I decided to go for my new goal, I adjusted this run to make it possible. However, my Garmin must have felt overworked after the two hour run yesterday and refused to pick up a signal, even after being in the park for almost a mile, so I gave up. I think I did close to 10mm based on my start and finish time but I have no way to know for sure.

Friday
Scheduled Rest Day

Although I did not go running, I did go into the park to bring my friend Beth a cup of coffee. She was nice enough to wait in line since 3am to get tickets for us to see Into the Woods, and I figured it was the least that I could do. Although it wasn't technically a perfect production, the spirit of the story still shone through, and it was very enjoyable. 

Saturday
Long Run: 15 Miles

Since I got home late, I decided not to start my run until 8am. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake, but the temperature difference between 7am and 8am on the forecast was non-existant. Once again, my Garmin decided to have a hissy fit, but thankfully, it decided to catch a signal after I reached the park, so only 1/2 a mile went unrecorded. 

In order to get my mileage, I decided to elongate the usual six mile loop to include both Harlem Meer and one loop of the reservoir. I ran this loop clockwise, and as I passed through Harlem Meer, someone who was either hungover or high (not sure which one) asked me which way 86th street was. I showed him. He then turned to 110th and said "wait a minute, that's not 65th street?". I said no, repeated my directions, and went on my merry way after he thanked me. I hope that he found his way to wherever he needed to go. 

After I finished my elongated route, I did the normal route counter-clockwise this time, and somehow realized that I underestimated how long the route was (surprise, surprise) and at the end of the day, ran 15.5 miles. I could have stopped at 15 miles and walked, but after ditching Cat Hill to run up 5th avenue, I figured I should get the extra exercise in (2 rounds of Harlem Hill were enough for me for one day!). I seem to be very good at negative splitting my runs these days

I was surprised at how tired I was the rest of the day. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of training catching up, but even after going to a dress fitting, eating lunch, and taking a nap, I felt tired the rest of the day. Maybe it was the lack of my usual chocolate milk. Shrug. It was why I was so surprised that my run today went as well as it did. 

Sunday
Recovery Run - 7 miles

Well, I was expecting a total slug fest after how exhausted I was yesterday, but it was a beautiful, breezy day, and to my surprise, my easy pace was faster than I thought. I considered skipping Harlem Hill, but told myself not to be a baby and did it anyways. It was one of those runs where everything seemed to fall into place. I only stopped for water twice, and ran into the same woman who I had seen a couple of weeks previously.



And with that run, I accomplished a significant milestone - this was the first time I ran 50 miles in one week. In fact, my weekly total was 50.50 miles. I'm thrilled that I was able to reach this milestone, and as of now, my legs feel great. 

This coming week, I do not have as many miles scheduled, but I will be facing my first twenty miler. I used to be scared of this milestone, but as the weeks go by, and as each workout is completed, I feel my insecurities going slowly away. In fact, the marathon doesn't scare me as much as it once did. I know that barring disaster, I will finish, and hopefully my training will reflect all of the hard work that I put into it. 

Thanks for reading! 

NYCM Training: Weeks 4 & 5 (Garmin Images to come later)

I don’t know where the time went, but unfortunately I never got a chance to update my blog for week 4, and before I knew it, week 5 had passed. So this time, I will be making a combined blog entry. This means that there won’t be as much detail, but all the important points will be covered.

My goal going into this training plan was to follow it exactly and to not change days around, but the last couple of weeks, I was going through some personal stuff, and allowances had to be made.

Week 4

Week 4 was a little different than the previous weeks since instead of having speed work on Tuesday, I had a marathon pace run scheduled on Saturday as part of my long run. So on Tuesday, I woke up early, and set out to do eight miles. Apparently I can’t add properly at 5am, for at mile 7 or so I realized I calculated an eight and a half mile route. Oh well!!!

I was supposed to do my MLR of 11 miles the next morning, but I felt really sick when I woke up, so that didn’t happen. I was disappointed with myself, but I rebounded the next day when I ended up doing 10.5 miles before work. Since I took off Wednesday, I did my Thursday 5 miler on Friday, and ended back on schedule.

On Saturday, it somehow took me longer than I wanted to get going, but I was still determined to get my MP run in. I decided to do my route along summer streets, and then do the remainder miles in the park. I had planned on doing my faster miles on the streets, but that kind of fell apart when I realized that reception would be spotty, and that I wouldn’t really know my pace. So I bagged the MP pace workout, and just tried to average faster than usual throughout. I ended up with a 9:30 average, even after incorporating Harlem Hill towards the end when my legs were exhausted. The only reason I even did this was that I ran into someone I worked the NYCM water table with last year, and we ran a couple of miles together after playing a bit of leapfrog.

Sunday’s 4 miler went without a hitch, and although it was supposed to be a recovery run, it somehow once again turned into a 4.2 mile progression run. My total mileage for week 4 was 44.2 miles, which was another personal record for me.

Week 5

For some reason, I didn’t have much of an appetite on Monday, which would really play a role in how Tuesday’s workout went. I had 9 miles with 4x800 thrown in there, and for some reason, I didn’t even think of taking bloks with me. That and a lack of sufficient nutrition yesterday made things interesting. Very disappointing rookie mistakes on my part. I was able to hit the first three intervals, but I started feeling slightly faint and knew that the fourth one was just not happening. The last few miles were more difficult for me than usual, and the entire time, I was just kicking myself for not at least taking bloks with me. Sigh.

The rest of my week kind of got thrown off a bit. Since I didn’t run Wednesday morning (I swear, my Wednesdays are cursed!) I went to the gym that night and did my shorter 5 mile run instead of the MLR that was called for. When the five mile indicator hit on that machine, I pressed the stop button as fast as possible. Even while watching family guy, I find the treadmill almost unbearable. I could have done one additional mile if needed, but beyond that, there was just no way.

Since I got back late on Wednesday, I finally got to my MLR of 10 miles on Friday morning, and it felt surprisingly good. I wasn’t a fan of starting before sunrise, but watching it take place in Central Park was very beautiful.

I had a wedding the next day, so I could only manage to fit in five miles after waiting for the rain to stop and unpacking my grocery delivery. Thankfully, I got all my miles in and managed to get ready for the wedding. It was a very fun occasion, and it was great to catch up with some former coworkers.

However, I got back so late, that I ended up deciding to skip LTR #2. I set my alarm for 6am, but the moment I woke up, I knew that I wasn’t going to function as well as I needed to for my first 18, so I went back to bed for a couple of hours. When I finally woke up, I had some breakfast, and then headed out.

I decided to utilize a change of scenery, so after running a couple of miles in the park, I ran west towards the Hudson River Path and ran 6 miles down, and 6 miles back to make the 18 miles on my schedule. Although the day hadn’t started out as planned, I was really proud of myself for having the mental capacity to run for three hours on my own.

Since I ate before I started running, I tried something new with fueling that I probably wouldn’t do again – I waited to fuel until the 9 mile mark, and felt good, but after mile 14 or so I realized that I needed a little something more so I took a couple of more. From now on, I’ll probably stick to anywhere between 4-6 miles, depending on the total mileage, as it seems to work best when I do it that way.

Overall, I hit 47 miles for the week, and as of this morning, I don’t feel sore or anything. So far, I’ve been happy with how training is going. Hopefully, I can finally break my Wednesday curse this coming week!

Other Thoughts

So far, my average LR / MLR paces have been anywhere from 9:35-10mm, which is pretty much where I’d like to be. This week will have the longest MLR so far (12 miles), so waking up early enough to get that in will be a challenge. However, my long run will be 15 miles this week, so I’m deciding on whether I want to just stick to the park, or start incorporating more of the marathon bridges into the route. We’ll see how the week progresses, and who is available to keep me company on Saturday.

Garmin pictures to come later. My work computer is from the stone ages and will not let me put images in.

NYCM Week #3: In which my mileage = The answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything

I was asked after posting last week's blog what my time goal for the marathon, and at this point, I'm not entirely sure. According to the McMillan Calculator, based on my 1:52:28 half marathon, the best marathon time I could get is a 3:56:41 (9:02mm pace). However, this assumes that my mileage is significantly higher, and that most first timers should take that and add 20 minutes. 

This brings me to a 4:15 marathon, which is a 9:44 minute pace. My current easy pace is approximately in this range, so I feel that this is an achievable goal. However, I haven't done any 20 milers, and my indicator half in October will also be an indicator of how things are going, so I'll wait before then to make any definite decisions. 

Monday

Scheduled Rest Day

This past week started off very nicely. I usually run in the mornings, but on Monday night, I went to see Bring it On the musical, and after that it was hard for me to fall asleep, so I postponed my workout until Tuesday night...

Tuesday

Tempo Run - 8 miles with 3 @ 15K - HM pace

Note: This was an 8 mile run. A lot of the time, my Garmin
doesn't receive a signal until I run the 1/2 mile to Central Park

I was a bit worried about how this would go. The first couple of miles felt sluggish, but once my garmin beeped at the 2 mile marker, I just sucked it up and started to get faster. I did my three miles of speedwork around the track, and happily, I managed to stay within a few seconds of 15K pace. 

It was my first time going over a two mile tempo run, so I was very pleased with how it went. I'm sure that once I take the longer tempo runs to the hillier portions of Central Park, my paces won't be as great, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there

Wednesday

Medium Long Run.....or not

I was supposed to get my medium long run in that evening since my speed workout was the night before and I didn't want to put those runs less than 12 hours apart. However, my stomach had been having issues that day. In addition, I was playing clarinet for my friend's rock band the next night, and was concerned about making sure that I could play the music. So when my parents invited me out to a quick bite after I printed my music at their apt, I decided to shift some days around this week. 

Thursday

Medium Long Run - attempt #2

I woke up early Thursday morning and ran the ten miles that I was supposed to run on Wednesday. I was happy to see that I averaged about 10mm (probably slightly faster since the last half mile was run in city streets and probably really not that slow). Waking up before 5:30am is no laughing matter, but it got done. 

Once again, the first 1/2 mile wasn't captured by the Garmin

Friday

Short & Easy Run

This is usually a scheduled rest day, but because I didn't run Wednesday, I had to move Thursday's run to Friday. I was supposed to do 4 miles, but I got out of the house later than intended. Also, it was very humid out, so after 3 miles, I called it a day. I figured that making up a mile on Sunday wouldn't be a major deal (spoiler alert - it wasn't)

Saturday

Long Run - Summer Streets

On three Saturdays in August, New York City has an annual tradition of closing down one of the major avenues for several miles, from 72nd Street all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. Pedestrians take over the streets from 7am - 1pm, and there are a few different rest stops with fun activities to do along the way. 

I live about a mile north of the start, so I decided to run down there, all the way to the bottom, and then decide where to go from there. Since the bottom of Summer Streets connected straight into the Brooklyn Bridge, I decided to add mileage and run across it. 

After getting to the Brooklyn side of the bridge, I looked at a map of Brooklyn and debated running towards Prospect Park, but ultimately decided that I didn't want to take a train home after I finished running, so I turned around and ran back the way I came. Once I ran all the way back up to the end of summer streets, I opted to take a detour into Central Park and run up the West drive so that I would get enough mileage in. It ended up being the right decision and I hit 15 miles just as I was about to leave the park on the East Side. 

I really liked that Summer Streets had several stations in which I could fill up my water bottle. I thought that the flow of traffic was handled nicely by the volunteers, and I never felt that things were too crowded. Granted, I went early, so I don't know if this changed later on in the day. 

This fifteen miler was harder than LTR #1 for a couple of reasons, even though I started running pretty much at the exact same time. It was much warmer this week than last week, so it was much more difficult to keep a steady pace. Also, I ran with friends last week, and this week, I was unable to find a running buddy. However, it was my first time running over the half marathon distance on my own, and achieving it was a very important mental milestone for me. 

I was very happy that my paces were close to consistant. Despite the heat, I only stopped once or twice for non-water filling related reasons, although they were to take in the scenery more than anything else. The view from the Brooklyn Bridge is amazing. 

After that, I ended up taking a nap, and then watching the Olympics the rest of the day. It was too warm out to do much else. 

Sunday

Recovery Run

After setting up my DVR for the women's' marathon, I headed out for my recovery run, and boy, did my legs have no interest in being out there at first. It was at least 95% humidity, and it felt like I was running in a bowl of soup. 

It wasn't until mile 4 or 5 that I really felt like I was getting into my run, and even then, I felt relief that it was almost over. Although my legs didn't feel sore for the rest of the day, they gave a clear signal that they were done for the week. At least I was able to make up the mile that I didn't do on Friday.

Somehow, my recovery runs manage to turn into progression runs, even though I don't consciously try to speed up. 

Week in Review

Overall, I felt that the week went as planned. I didn't enjoy shuffling things around, and would rather not do so again in the future, but I know that it's probably going to happen at some point. I also found that if I scheduled a run for after work, I would feel anxious most of the day, and worry about not completing it, while when I run in the morning, I enjoy it more, and also like the fact that I can relax in the evenings once the day is over. 

I was also happy to see that I achieved a new personal best of 42 miles for the week. Next week, I have my first marathon pace run on the schedule, so we'll see how that goes. Thanks for reading! 

NYCM Training: Week #2

I had meant to write this entry earlier this week, but things have been very busy, and I haven’t had a chance. 

First of all, thanks to everyone who read and commented on last week’s entry. I thought that Jeff brought up a good point in regards to running the day before the marathon. While I do understand where he is coming from, and I will consider it, psychologically, I think that taking the day off will make me feel more rested. It is definitely something to think about though.

Overall, week #2 went very nicely, and I hit a 40 mile week for the first time since the week of May 21^st. I was relieved when I realized that even with speed work, my body seemed to be handling everything pretty well.

Monday

Scheduled Rest Day

Tuesday

Tempo Run

I had 6 miles with 3 miles of 15K – HM pace on the schedule, but after going too fast during last week’s speed session, I decided to try 2 miles again and make sure to get the pacing down before attempting a three mile tempo run. 

Split Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary	57:43.9	6.00	9:37
1	10:50.3	1.00	10:51
2	10:13.4	1.00	10:13
3	8:17.3	1.00	8:17
4	8:17.9	1.00	8:18
5	9:57.5	1.00	9:57
6	10:05.4	1.00	10:05
7	:02.1	0.00	7:48

I felt sluggish the first mile, but I doubt I did a 10:51 minute mile. Since I start my run in the middle of the city streets, the signal can be a bit skewed, which affects what my watch says my pace is. As I did my second mile, I was still a bit tired, and wondered if I would be able to speed it up, but as I heard the Garmin beep, I pulled it together and sped up. At this point, I am still doing most of my tempo runs on the reservoir path since they are short enough that 1-2 loops do not feel too repetitive. Thankfully, the paces were much better this time around and I was only a few seconds faster than the recommended 15K pace of 8:23mm. After a couple of easy miles at the end, I stopped running at the 6 mile mark and walked the rest of the way home to cool down.

Wednesday

Medium Long Run

I know that most people would not consider 8 miles to be a medium long run, but for me, it is, especially since during the week, I rarely run more than 5-6 miles. Unfortunately, I forgot to plug in my garmin, and it died on me, so I don’t have my paces. I probably was within the long run pace range, but most likely on the faster side. Still, the eight miles got done, and after the first couple of miles, they felt pretty good.

Thursday

Easy Run

This six mile run felt good the entire time. As usual, my first mile looks much slower due to signal issues. I probably averaged closer to 9:30 than 9:40, but oh well. Everything felt good, and it wasn’t too hot or humid out.  However, when I got home, I realized that I only had 5 miles on the schedule. Whoops!

Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary	58:09.6	6.01	9:41
1	10:32.7	1.00	10:32
2	9:30.4	1.00	9:30
3	9:22.1	1.00	9:22
4	9:28.6	1.00	9:28
5	9:41.5	1.00	9:42
6	9:32.1	1.00	9:32
7	:02.2	0.01	7:13

Friday

Scheduled Rest Day

Saturday

Long Run

Split Split Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time Miles Distance Minutes per Mile Avg Pace Summary 2:32:19.7 15.19 10:02 1 10:19.4 1.00 10:19 2 9:59.9 1.00 10:00 3 10:05.7 1.00 10:06 4 9:55.2 1.00 9:55 5 10:11.9 1.00 10:12 6 9:55.0 1.00 9:55 7 10:37.1 1.00 10:37 8 9:51.0 1.00 9:51 9 10:07.0 1.00 10:07 10 10:19.2 1.00 10:19 11 9:51.7 1.00 9:52 12 9:46.8 1.00 9:46 13 9:55.6 1.00 9:56 14 9:51.1 1.00 9:51 15 9:51.5 1.00 9:52 16 1:41.6 0.19 9:01

Since I had a 14 mile run scheduled that day, I signed up for NYRR’s Long Training Run, which took place in Central Park. One of the local running clubs provided pace leaders for every half minute interval from 7:30-11mm. Even though both 9:30 and 10mm were in my long run range, I decided to be cautious and join the 10mm group.

I ended up in the same group as Wallis and two of her friends from her running club, Rachel and Rich. I found out that it was Rachel’s first attempt at the 16 mile distance. While I was originally going to do 14, I realized that based on how many miles were in each loop, the 15 mile mark was the closest one to my apartment, so I decided to go for it.

Our pace group started out a little slow, but eventually we evened out to almost exactly 10mm on average. We had a very enthusiastic sub-group within our ranks – there was a group of people from Odessey House who were very enthusiastic, to say the least. Although I was annoyed by all of the noise at first, I eventually warmed up to it. In the first loop, there was a chant every mile saying how many miles there were left assuming that people were running the full 20 miles. There were plenty of water stations, and there were power gels and food being served in the regrouping area.

After the first loop, I barely had the chance to use the toilet before my group took off again. I was lucky that I didn’t miss their departure. I think that it was around this time that I saw a certain annoying charity group who wears purple all of the time. They decided that it was ok to have large groups of people running in the opposite direction as the training run. I really don’t get their thought process sometimes.

During the third and final loop (for me), I realized that my friends and I had gotten ahead of the pace group. I started to slow down to let the pacers catch up, but then I realized that my new friends weren’t doing the same so I ran back ahead with them. The last few miles went well, and I exited the park and walked home to cool down. My average pace was a 10:02, which considering we had stopped for water several times, was right within my personal pace goals.

Sunday

Recovery Run

Split			Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles Distance	Minutes per Mile Avg Pace
Summary			50:59.8	5.08	10:03
1			10:16.4	1.00	10:16
2			10:17.9	1.00	10:17
3			10:03.1	1.00	10:03
4			9:53.7	1.00	9:54
5			9:48.4	1.00	9:48
6			:40.3	0.08	8:51

I originally had 6 miles on the schedule, but since I was already on target to run 2 extra miles this week, I decided to do a 5 mile run to make it an even 40 miles (well, technically 40.27). A recovery run is supposed to be a very slow run. However, this happened…

Yea, that ended up being a progression run. My legs felt sluggish at first, but as I kept going, I felt stronger so that accounted for the speed-up. Top of Form

Week in Review

Overall, this week was very successful in terms of both overall mileage, and in terms of understanding the purpose of and adhering to each workout. Hopefully week 3 will go as well! (Spoiler: It’s been an interesting week. More to come later.)

Thanks for reading!