Action Shot of the Author Training in Upstate NY, Courtesy of B. Maschal Private Collection.
Fall marathon season is right around the corner. I planned on kind of taking it easy this year– as in, no big races after having such a great experience at last year’s NYC Marathon. Then in June or so, I was offered a bib for this year’s marathon and could not say no. Luckily, I had maintained a pretty decent baseline during the spring, so that I wasn’t starting from square one in August.
My training program started the second week of August, a thirteen week program that I made for myself. I thought it would be cool to do a thirteen weeker, since this will (knock on wood) by my 13th marathon. Similar to years prior, I’m feeling burnt out on training even though I’m only a little over half way there. Traditionally, I have always done a 12ish week program, which has given me plenty of extra time for minor injury or illness. Luckily, I haven’t had either of those this time around, yet (again, knock on wood), but I’m also wondering if transitioning to an 8 week program might make sense for any future marathons. I did an 18 mile run last weekend that was roughly race pace. For many marathon training programs, 18 is the max length of a training run. And yet, here I still have 6 weeks to go. Again, based on prior experience, I’m sure that in a couple of weeks when the weather really starts to cool down, my attitude will change and I’ll start to get excited about the race. So, I’ll stop complaining.
Anyway, training is going great. I’m doing a mix of routes in NYC and the Catskills. I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do better race-wise than I did last year. But I guess we will see. I have 4 different pairs of shoes that I have been rotating (all Nike), and have really been enjoying aspects about each pair. I’m immensely grateful for the privilege to run NYC again this year and very much looking forward to luckly number 13.
“No more photos!” Courtesy, B. Maschal Private Collection