MileGrams - August Training

Started out the month with a beautiful 11-miler in Cape Cod with my dear friend Sarah! We were in town for our friend Jim's wedding. She is a master runner and graciously accompanied me at my tortoise pace.

 

 Step-back week 7-mile run with Team for Kids. NYC hosts Saturday Summer Streets where Park Ave closes to drivers and opens to pedestrians and bikers. It was amazing!

Seen in Chinatown after a physical therapy session. This guy was doing pull-ups. Get your exercise in wherever you can. No excuses!

More McCarren track sightings. 

 Busy Monday morning!

 This guy is there most mornings, walking in his steel toe boots and jean shorts.

Before the sun is up, the track is lit by street lamps.

The New York Road Runners holds three practice training "races" leading up to the marathon. I ran 14 miles at the Long Training Run #2 on Sunday, August 17th. 

 Seen on the L train on the way to Central Park. Probably could have done this at home?

 Runners waiting for the race to start.

 People who over-hydrated on the way to the race. 

 Everyone lining up in their proper pace order. 

New York Road Runners provided pace setters up to 11:00 min/miles.

 Slow group finally reaching the start of the race!

 Three hours of running on a Sunday.

 

 We did it! My running partner Rhina!

 Waiting for the subway and assessing how many calories I could eat at brunch. 1132 calories burned!

5am warm-up in a sleepy apt.

The team met this past Saturday way up in the Bronx to run 15 miles in Van Cortlandt Park. 

A perk of getting on the subway at 5am on a Saturday morning is that you get to see hilarious drunk people on their way home from their Friday night out. Here are two drunkards mugging out in front of a very disapproving lady. 

Beautiful Van Cortlandt Park at sunrise!

 Appropriate meeting place, the Tortoise and the Hare statue. 

 Amazing team volunteers at one of the water stations drew some chalk inspirations for us.

 The park was full of Cricket teams when we were finishing up our run. If I hadn't been so tired and hungry, I would have stayed to watch. 

Team post-run stretch led by Coach April.

I am taking a blog break for Labor Day. Next post will go up on September 8th. Everyone have a wonderful holiday weekend! 

Monthly Musings - Dog Days of August

I just realized that I started out the month with an Inspirations post as opposed to a Monthly Musings post. It took me two weeks to notice. 

Well, I think that basically sums up my current head-space. I will try to move forward and get over the fact that my blog is now imperfect. 

August training has gone pretty well. I've managed to keep up with the mileage, especially the big ramp-up to catch up with the team. Yesterday, I ran 14 miles. As of today, I'm officially back on the team schedule! 

I'm not sure if it is the summer heat, the yearly audit at work, or the intensity of the training, but I'm feeling a bit brain dead. 

I think the human body is only capable of exerting energy in one place. Right now, all of my intelligence is residing in my legs. And, all my legs want right now is food. I'm hungry all the time. Everyone says that marathon training is not the time to diet, but I think I'm taking that to the extreme.

Oh, and to top things off, I'm developing the skin of a 15 year old. 

The summer in NYC is unlike anywhere else. The concrete jungle turns into a giant oven, heating up the streets and bringing out their natural odors. The subway platforms are 100 degrees. And, every single place a dog, homeless person, or drunk has urinated becomes a magical scent surprise that you are forced to walk through. Trash days are the worst. It is essentially two-three months of feeling constantly unclean, no matter how many showers you take. And, I get to run a thousand miles through all of that!  

The first month of training was clearly the childhood phase. I was just learning to run again, going slowly and gingerly. Everything was new and exciting.

Now, I have bad skin, no brain, I'm angsty about the heat, I'm always hungry, and I'm awkwardly adjusting to the changes in my body. I've clearly entered the teenage hell of training.

"I would love to relive my teenage years," said nobody EVER. Hopefully, I will be in my college years by the time the next Monthly Musings post comes around. With the current disordered chaos of this blog's schedule, who knows when that will be.

Inspirations - Frodo Baggins

Since my Nintendo post probably already outed me as a nerd, I figured I might as well roll with it for this month's inspiration post. As I'm 12 weeks into training, I'm starting to experience some physical and mental fatigue. While I am certainly looking for inspiration for the actual marathon day, I'm finding myself in need of some training inspiration right now. As a big fantasy/sci-fi reader, I've decided to go with Frodo Baggins as my inspiration for the month.  

While there are undoubtedly scores of real athletes and heroes that could have provided me the inspirational boost I need, they just don't compare to Frodo in one thing: familiarity. Sad as it may be, I've read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy three different times in my life (and will likely read them again in the future). I also own the extended versions of all three movies. Needless to say, I know Frodo's story inside and out. 

So why Frodo? To start, he actually has a physically daunting task that requires him to get from point A to point B. He is basically attempting the mother of all marathons, where failure results in the death of all goodness on Middle Earth. Additionally, in a story full of magic and fantasy, Frodo struggles so vividly and humanly with his seemingly insurmountable task. As we all know...

He is the smallest and the weakest of his companions.  Unlike the elves and the wizards, he has no magic of his own to call upon. 

His only source of magic comes from the one item that tempts him in the most unholy manner. The same item he must destroy.

With the odds already stacked against him, he is seriously wounded very early on in his quest. The injury continues to plague him during the rest of his journey.

Parallels, much? Although I've improved my pace, I'm still towards the back of the pack. My own ring of temptation taunts me to sleep in or miss a run. My glut injury, while not the same as getting stabbed by a morgul blade, continues to creep around and make appearances. If only that Nazgul had pierced Frodo in the right glut, Frodo and I would be EXACTLY THE SAME. 

But in all seriousness, the training lately has felt like a trip to Mordor. I'm up to 18 miles and I still have 6 weeks left, including long runs of 14, 18, 20 and 13. I felt so accomplished after running 18 miles last Sunday, only to realize after my runner's high receded that I still had to keep training. At this time, I'm looking forward to the marathon because it will be the one long run where I can actually take a long break from running afterward. So, right now, I'm trying to channel Frodo when my alarm goes off at 4am, when the thought of having to run after work makes me want to cry, when I despair at the thought of another six Saturdays with no sleeping in, and when my glut injury starts acting up. 

I mean, let's be honest. Nothing in Frodo's journey was easy, and he barely made it. He nearly died so many times.

But, he just kept trucking. Besides all of the near death experiences, I sympathize with Frodo because he wasn't always the most gracious about his task.

A marathon is a difficult task to train for and complete. It isn't always supposed to feel easy and happy. People understand the difficulty and I need to trust that they will forgive me any ungracious acts. I just need to get to Mordor. I don't need to look pretty, or win any congeniality awards on my way there.    

On that note, I would like to give a big shout-out to Ryan, the Samwise Gamgee to my Frodo Baggins. He joins me for my crazy early bedtimes, stays in with me on Friday nights, proofreads this blog and indulges with me at post-long run brunches.

He has borne the brunt of my crankiness during my injury, and also during the intensity of training.  

He is basically carrying me to the finish-line, but not getting any of the glory. 

(The last one is random, but I couldn't resist. So true, right? Team Sam & Frodo!)

Thanks, Ryan!  I promise, there is an end in sight. Because, there really is an end in sight. My struggle is nowhere near as difficult as Frodo's, yet he completed it. 

Also, in case you were wondering, the lovely LOTR fans on the internet estimate the full distance Frodo traveled to Mordor as 1,560 miles. That would be nearly 60 marathons.

  

Impressive.