New York State of Mind

Quickie update to my workouts since my last post:

Wednesday, 10/26 – 4.5-miles
I woke up too early and had time for some extra mileage before meeting my friend at stupid-thirty.

Thursday, 10/27 – 3 miles

Friday, 10/28 – Rest

Saturday, 10/29 – 6 miles
Last "long run" before NYC! I had a great run with my WF peeps and enjoyed girl talk over coffee afterwards.

Hope everyone had an awesome Halloween! We carved pumpkins and went to a couple of Halloween parties with the kids, then took them out trick or treating on Monday – fun times!

Holy cow, just a few more days ‘til NYC!!!

In honor of the upcoming trip to NYC, I give you NYC-inspired music:



There are things people don’t tell you when you are training for a marathon. Things I had forgotten since running my last marathon FIVE YEARS AGO!

Phantom Pains
Things like phantom pains. In fact, I even blogged about it here before I ran Chicago in 2006. Yep, last week I did P90X Ab Ripper X and the very next day I started to notice hip pain at the top of my right hip. It wasn’t excrutiating, but it was annoying. It was so strange, because I've done this workout hundreds of times and never had any issues (other than sore abs!). When I ran my 6-miler on Saturday, I noticed the pain afterwards and it got more intense as the day went on. Finally, I took an Aleve and that seemed to help. I still feel it today, along with some unusual aches in my lower back on the same side.

Phantom pains?

Who knows? But what I have noticed that during race week of any big race is that I tend to feel unusual aches and pains. I don’t know if these feelings are amplified because of the anticipation, stress, or adrenaline..or if it’s just paranoia. Whatever. I am taking Aleve and will try not to think about it too much. Needless to say, I will not be doing any moreP90X until after NYC!

Weather Obsession
Another thing that I had forgotten was the obsession with the weather. I am being much better about it this time around, though. I’ve decided that I’ve made it through this hot as hell summer (including a 20-miler in less than ideal conditions), so I can pretty much handle whatever Mother Nature throws at me on race day. Although, I was a little freaked out to see snow in NYC over the weekend. Whatever. I have only looked at the forecast 2x in the past week, when normally I would be checking it daily. Here’s the deal – I will bring an outfit for effing cold weather and one for warmer weather. End of story. Right now, it looks like the temps will be in the low 40’s in the morning and the mid-50’s by noon with increasing cloud cover throughout the day…I’m thinking running skirt and short sleeves will be perfect.

Taper Madness
One other thing I forgot about is the taper madness. One of two things tend to happen to me during taper – I either lose motivation and don’t wanna run –or- I feel like such a slug for only running about 10 miles during the week and running single digit runs on Saturday. This year, I am feeling like a slug, especially since I axed the ab workouts. Thankfully, I only have a few more days of feeling like a slug.

I am a total type A personality - I have created a checklist for packing, a list of cupcake places to check out (with addresses, phone numbers and recommended flavors to try), I have a couple of groupons for restaurants to try, tickets for the Met, MoMa and the Guggenheim and a list of other things to see this time around. :-) Can't wait!!!!