NYC Marathon Training: Week Seven (In It for the Long Haul)

A recent article profiled a runner who qualified for the Boston Marathon in each of the 50 states. In my imagination, I envision his buddies offhandedly asking whether he wants to run a marathon next weekend, and this runner nonchalantly replying “sure, sign me up” in the same way that I would throw in for a 5k any given day of the week. In my vision, I am sure that he does not have to prepare, because he is always prepared. Unlike that guy, my warm up to marathon day is a 16-week haul, and I am only now closing in on the halfway point. I appreciate now more than ever that it is not just the race that requires endurance. Rather, it is the build-up leading to the race that requires the real fortitude.

Getting through the middle is hard. Enough time has passed and the initial euphoria has worn off, my feet have seen better days, and between work, travel, and family commitments, those long runs (that are just getting longer) take more of an effort to sneak into the schedule. Race day is only 65 days away, but when it is 99 degrees outside as I set out on a weekday training run, the chilly November marathon day could not seem farther away.

By analogy, it feels like I just finished my first 13.1, and I’m trying to locate some resurgence of energy that will help me complete the second 13.1. And when I say I want to “complete” the second half … what I really mean is that I want to conquer it, exuberantly.

Let me introduce you to my Five Point Plan to fire up the second half:

1. 10k Labor Day Race: It is time to take these legs out for a race day test drive. My regular runs now are in the 7-8 mile range, and my long runs well into double digits. I have never (ever) had that much base training behind me going into a 10k. Time to push it. Let’s see what, at age 45, this body can do.

2. Refresh that Playlist: There was a time in May when all it took for me to take it up a notch was “Welcome to New York” blaring through my ear buds and visions of Central Park dancing in my head. Sorry, Taylor, but that song isn’t doing it for me any more. For that matter, all of my Power Songs have gone stale. Time to reboot the playlist … perhaps starting with the addition of “Go Big or Go Home”…

3. Stalk New York: I live in California but I am in love with NYC. Whenever I see a photo taken by someone training in New York, every time I get a glimpse of that city, it energizes me. Time to start binge watching the New York shows … Today, When Harry Met Sally … I may even stoop to Real Housewives of New York if it will give me a glimpse down First Avenue before I arrive for the race.

4. Connect with My Runner People: I have an amazing support community – my coaches, other runners in the NYRR virtual training group, and most especially my husband who has been my anchor, my biggest cheerleader, and is and will be my running companion through the end. But I have a whole untapped stable of passionate runner-friends whose enthusiasm for the sport, and endurance sports in general, is unmatched. Fair warning, dear friends, I’ll be calling on you for further inspiration.

5. Practice Gratitude: I read an article by a woman who dedicated each mile of her marathon to someone important to her, and clicked the names off one-by-one on a bracelet she wore on race day. I do not have a fixed list, but there are names. Most especially, I think of those who would love nothing more to train for and run this race, or at least share the experience with me, but who no longer are able to do so. I run for me, but I also run for them. And that always will give me strength.

So, friends, there’s the hit list. Feel free to add ideas for inspiration … or at least a few 80s songs to throw into the mix.

WelcomE!

The obligatory "about me" ...

I am a California attorney, wife and mother to two teenagers. Thanks to some fierce prodding by my brother and unwavering support from my family, I started to write again (hence, the blog), and to run again (training for the New York City Marathon). After all, if you are going to get in the game, you might as well go all-in. You can find out more about my story here.

November 1, 2019

This Is Fifty

When I first started this writing space and was trying on different names for what ultimately became Midlife Run, I struggled. Solidly in my forties, the idea of attaching the word “midlife” to anything seemed like an unwelcome, uncomfortable stretch reserved for the after-fifty set. But I settled into the name, comforted by the knowledge that I was on the “early side” of midlife. Not so any more. Last month we dropped our youngest at college thus marking the beginning of the “empty nester years” and today, as I start to write this, I turn fifty. I am solidly, undeniably, in midlife.

August 19, 2019

It's Almost Here: The Empty Nest!

In my memory, I cannot think of a more seismic shift in our marriage than when we had children. The first sign that our world was about to be rocked actually happened when our first bun was still in the oven and we were standing outside of a Denver bar. It wasn’t late, we were with good friends, and good times were being had by all, especially by those (not me) enjoying a night of craft beer and pool. By that point in my pregnancy, my body was changing and bulging, I had given up caffeine, alcohol, and hot baths and traded them for binge-eating apples. My pregnancy and impending motherhood were feeling tangibly real in a way that it wasn’t (yet) for my husband. And that night, with festivities just warming up, I was standing by the car asking my husband not to go in and to come home with me instead because I was exhausted and sick with pregnancy. If you ask him now, he doesn’t remember that night. I do. In his eyes and in his body-language was a man coming to terms with our new and changing reality. As we looked at each other we silently acknowledged that our lives would never be the same. What we want, what we do, how we see the world, and how we prioritize our lives no longer involved just the two of us. There was going to be a third member of our family, and eventually a fourth, and nothing, ever, not even a night out with friends, would be quite so simple any more.

May 20, 2019

Lucky Me (Guest Post by Andrew J. Pridgen)

My excuses for why I’m not going to perform well in a race while I toe the starting line roll up like opening credits in a movie. Written by: Lack of preparation, Directed by: Insecurity, Executive produced by: My shoes don’t feel right, Casting by: I can barely breathe and my ankle already hurts. Starring: Me.

April 3, 2019

Walk Slowly with Me

Our family is not one to stand still. We fall easily into the pace of rushed crowds on New York City streets, and we barrel ahead in pursuit of goals. We move forward, and then we move forward again. Even our family walks seem to be driven, marching along familiar neighborhood paths, distracted by conversation, and, for the past twelve years, led by our trusty furry companion, Lucy, whose entry into our family was the very thing that initiated this nightly routine.

January 13, 2019

New Year's Resolution: Do One Thing

I have a shrink-wrapped cork board leaning against the wall to the right of my desk, clearly within view. It’s been standing sentinel in the same spot for months, waiting for me to deal with it and daring me to get on with it already. Its purpose is to be a vision board of sort, a place for me organize my goals, to lay them out in a way that my left-leaning brain can process and check them off, mixed together with other bits designed to spark my still developing right-brain to creativity. I look at that cork board regularly with the same dread that someone with writer’s block stares at a blinking curser on a blank screen.

December 9, 2018

NYC Marathon: Challenge, Growth, and Celebration

When you tell someone – especially a non-runner someone – that you are going to run a marathon, you’re generally met with some version of a respectful “that’s great … good for you.” Contrast, when you tell someone that you are going to run the NYC Marathon, there’s a special, heightened aura that surrounds what surely, inevitably, will be nothing short of an epic race.

November 3, 2018

Life’s a Journey ... The Road to NYC Marathon 2018

Mostly, though, there has been an extraordinarily emotional undercurrent to this training cycle because it is impossible for me to look forward to this marathon without looking back to my 2015 NYC Marathon, and examining with wonder how one stacked series of events can make your whole life pivot until you find yourself on a trajectory you never could have imagined.

September 15, 2018

Creating Space, Building Strength

In my ordinary life, there is room for writing, for running, for meaningful conversations, and for balance. My life right now is not ordinary. It is frenetic, and it is all but consumed by a single work endeavor. It leaves me starving for sleep and time with family, it led me to write a middle of the night SOS to my coach about my NYC marathon training, and it is accompanied by a level of stress and adrenaline that can keep me going now, but in the long run is unsustainable. Gratefully, I am not alone in this experience, and I have my ultimate support crew (husband and family) behind me.

June 27, 2018

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Because There Will Be Plenty of Big Stuff: Reflections on 25 Years of Marriage

Certain milestones simply make me pause. Today is a big one – our 25th wedding anniversary. By any measure, that is a legitimately long time to spend marching through life next to the same person. It has me looking back in wonder about how we got to this point, looking forward trying to guess what is ahead, and reflecting broadly about what I know now about the two of us together and the life-long project of building a marriage. Unsurprisingly, I have a few thoughts.

March 29, 2018

That Family Place

When my Dad was young, the annual family pilgrimage took them to Lake Tahoe during the summer, where his family would stay in a small cabin on the north shore, the boys would catch crawdads between the boulders jutting out from the Lake, and skip smooth, flat rocks over the water’s surface. I know these things because when my parents took my brother and me to the same lake shore, and years later after the next generation joined us, my parents would tell the stories. The connection to Lake Tahoe is now four generations deep, and with every new year and new family member or friend who joins us, the memories deepen and years of family stories from this special place transform into epic lore.