Marathon Week!

I’ve made it…it’s here: MARATHON WEEK!

I’m excited and nervous and scared and confused and prepared an unprepared all at the same time. I’m sure many are feeling the same way. I spent the last 4+ months building up for this race and now its finally here. In 5 days, around 12:50pm (fingers crossed!) I will become a member in an exclusive club: I will be a Marathoner. Unreal.

On Saturday afternoon, I ran the last 10 miles of the course, led by the orange flags lining the course to the finish line. A few observations/tips:

• First Avenue is generally flat! There is an extremely minimal incline (in the 80s I think?) But followed by an equally minimal decline
• The Willis Avenue Bridge, leading into the Bronx, is under construction and I think we’ll be running over the new bridge on race day. It was hard to tell much about this bridge because I had to walk up the pedestrian stairs and such. Its pretty short.
• You’re in the Bronx for like .2 seconds before heading back into Manhattan. Make a few turns as you can see on the course map, but nothing bad. Seemed pretty level.
• The turns around Marcus Garvey Park could be a good place to exercise running tangents? I felt like I was back in high school doing annoying laps/turns around a basketball court in gym
• The incline on 5th avenue heading up to Central Park is going to be a PAIN. It started around 108th st, and I really didn’t think it crested until like 92nd/91st. The worst part seemed around 104/102 st, I think. After you’ve hit the wall (or hopefully, not!) this is more of a challenge then I thought…
• Once you enter Central Park on 90th street, you’re just about golden. Just have to remind myself how many countless times I have run down Cat Hill that direction before and how familiar it is
• Once you exit the park, Central Park South going towards Columbus Circle did feel like a tiny incline. Or maybe I was just tired from dodging pesky NYC tourists. Probably will have lost all circulation to my brain at this point and the path to the finish line will be a blur!

In the end, running the last 10 gave me a good indication of the end of the course, leaving no unknowns when I start to struggle.

This week I’m trying to relax, rest my legs, and get pumped! A busy work week is making the relaxing part hard, but I’m off Friday to de-stress and visit the expo to get all my goods!

Sunday I did 6 miles kinda split while I was watching my friend/old Villanova teammate Frances win the Poland Spring 5 miler race in Central Park in the morning. It was good to see her again and I got in some easy miles while she cooled down, and then ran home!
I took Monday off, ran 6 this morning, and have planned for rest of week: Wed: 5; Thurs: 4; Friday off; Saturday easy 3 to shake out + easy strides. Total of 24 miles for the week, and then 26.2 on Sunday!

I was planning to run after work all this week to get some extra sleep, but with the colder weather,  longer hours at work, and desire to just go home and eat a good dinner, I’ve found it’s so much easier to just bang it out on the morning and attempt to get to bed a little earlier than normal. Dare I say I’ve fully transitioned to a morning runner? I used to hate running in the morning, like could barely do 20 minutes, but I think it definitely takes a while to get used to. Now I love it because it makes the rest of my day easier, and I feel more awake. Really!

In the meantime, I’ll be obsessively stalking the weather forecast (which looks like 50 and sunny, by the way!) and visiting www.ingnycmarathon.org at least 50 times daily.

Where I’ll be in 5 days! Along with 45,000 other of my closest friends 🙂