Marathon Training - Week 13 & 14

After finishing the Brooklyn half marathon, I was ready for another distance milestone... but I had a volleyball tournament on Saturday the 10th, so I couldn't do the long run with the group that weekend. I also caught a cold, so I really didn't do much of anything except for a couple short runs with the group during the week. By the time this past Saturday came around, I was a little bit nervous about how the run was going to go since it had basically been 3 weeks since I had done my 17-18 mile run.

I got to the park this past Saturday a little early in anticipation, and as the team started to show up I was getting more and more anxious just to get started. Because people were going to do anything from 12-20 miles this week, the coaches decided to have us do variations of the 3 bridges run again (see week 11) so that we could skip a bridge or add additional laps around the park to end up with the distance we wanted. I ended up doing the full 20.6 miles - the same three bridges route as we previously did, and not 1 but 2 laps around Prospect Park. It took just over 3 and 1/2 hours, but it was awesome and really felt like a huge accomplishment. Miles 18 & 19 were the toughest, but I just kept thinking about why I'm doing this as well as all the people that are supporting me.

Next week I'll be in Ohio, so I'm going to try and run on my own. Stay tuned for more... only 1 month to go!!!

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.

Marathon Training - Week 12

This week's training was really exciting because it was an actual race! And not just any race, it was a half marathon in Brooklyn! According to the New York Road Runners website there were over 5,800 runners participating yesterday morning. It started at Coney Island and the first couple miles were along the boardwalk. It was very cool running past Astroland and the Cyclone but a little treacherous as well. I saw three people fall because of missteps on the loose boards that kept popping up as the crowd ran over them. The longest stretch of the race was about 6 miles down Ocean Parkway - right past my building !!! Tom and the dogs came out to cheer us on and even ran along side us for a minute. It was great! (Tom told me afterwards that Foxy really wanted to keep running!) The final part of the race was in Prospect Park, where my team has done most of its training, so it was a great place to run the home stretch. My friend Sean (who is also running in Alaska) and I ran the whole way together and we finished in UNDER 2 HOURS!! It felt amazing & we were both really, really happy with how we did.

After we finished, we stayed and cheered for the rest of our team as they approached the finish line. When everyone was done, we went out for celebratory drinks/eats in Park Slope at and had a fantastic time.

If you want to read what this is all about, click here for details.
Also, please visit my fundraising page to make a donation or see how close I am to my $4900 goal to help fight cancer.