TCS NYC Marathon Training - Week 0

Week 0. Huh?

I figure that since I put all of my training session into my calendar for a 16-week training plan.

I thought to myself, what's one more week? Why not get started now? Plus, I have a tendency to be quite random with my training plans so I'll probably end up missing or skipping a week or two.

General housekeeping: 

-Since I have back issues (and I slouch way too much at work and home), I have decided to do my back stretches and foam rolling 1-2X every day.

-Also, I have joined a 30 burpee for 30 days challenge, and it's going well . . . for now.

-I'm a little concerned with a slight pain in (or behind) my shin. It does not hurt when I run or walk, but I do feel a tingle every now and then - especially walking up and down stairs. I'm a bit worried because I have had a couple of stress fractures in that leg in the past. I even had to cancel my registration to San Francisco's Marathon a few years ago because of one of these stress fractures in that leg.

So hot outside. The sweat is just dripping off of my head.

Monday: Planned 5mi easy; Actual 3mi

I'm such a doofus. I planned to incorporate this run with Harlem Run's Monday Night Fun Run. I was so excited to start the fun run that I left work at 5:30 pm and was at the meeting spot at 6 pm. So what's the problem? The running group meets at 7 pm. I thought of going home and coming back out at 7. But, I knew if I went home, I probably would not come back out to run so just ran three miles. I really wanted to run the full five miles but it was way too hot out.

Tuesday: 2.5 miles with 0.3mi hill repeats

I wanted to do a few more hill intervals during this workout, but I was cutting my time kind of close. I was invited to sit on a 'what you can be with a Ph.D.' type panel at UPenn, and I had to be at the train station to travel from NYC to Philly by 9 am. I got up bright an early and did this workout on the infamous hills in the north of Central Park.

Wednesday: Planned/Actual X-train, Zumba (45 min)

Thursday: Planned 5mi; Actual Rest

I was supposed to run 4 miles, but I was so exhausted to the point that I was falling asleep a work.

Friday: Planned/Actual Rest

Saturday: Planned 10mi; Actual 9.7mi

My first "long" run for this marathon training season. Since I registered for NYRR Retro 4mi, I decided to incorporate this race into my long run, or rather, incorporate my long run into the race. The plan was to run three miles before the race, run the 4-mile race, then run another three miles after the race. This plan worked out perfectly because my apt is about three miles from the start and the finish of the race. I'm not going to lie, but this run was kind of hard because of the heat. Although it was a struggle, I was happy that I finished even though I had to stop a couple of times.

Enjoying a post-run slushie on a hot day.

Sunday: Strength training and stretching 

Random 1

After this week's long run, I took my first ice bath. Boy, was it COLD. I cannot say if I see/feel the benefits just yet, but I think that I will try it again after next week's long run.

Random 2

After my ice bath, I made healthy "ice cream" by blending frozen bananas with a bit of milk. I have to say it was not THAT bad . . . once I mixed some peanut butter and M&M's in it.

Note, I did not use the entire bag of M&Ms for this batch.

Getting My TCS NYC Marathon 2019 Train On

I have been a really bad personal website blogger.

Wait, I remember why I became a bad blogger. I’m not a fan of the Squarespace’s “new” method of resizing images.

So, I’m going it again and embarking on another NYC Marathon training voyage.

Ok, looks like we are about 118 days away from NYC's Marathon.

I think this year, I will try to do a 16-week training plan, which starts on July 15th. I debated purchasing a virtual training plan from NYRR, but I decided to use a free one like in previous years. I figure that I have not been the most committed with my training plans so paying for one seems like a waste. Plus, I'm cheap. I wish that I was in better marathon-training shape going into this thing, but there is nothing that I can do about it at this point. 

I decided to go with a 16-week marathon training plan from Runner's World ( *** ). This training plan seems to have all the nuts and bolts that are needed to run a decent marathon. I want to get a couple of long runs out of the way before setting a time goal for the marathon. The plan involves five days of running; however, I may have to modify that schedule a bit. Aside from my failed attempt at doing a 30-day run streak, I rarely have run more than four times a week after my back injuries. For this plan, I may alternate between three and five runs per week . . . depending on how I'm feeling. Maybe during the three-run weeks, I'll add an extra X-training day.

I decided to go with a 16-week marathon training plan from Runner's World ( *** ). This training plan seems to have all the nuts and bolts that are needed to run a decent marathon. I want to get a couple of long runs out of the way before setting a time goal for the marathon. The plan involves five days of running; however, I may have to modify that schedule a bit. Aside from my failed attempt at doing a 30-day run streak, I rarely have run more than four times a week after my back injuries. For this plan, I may alternate between three and five runs per week . . . depending on how I'm feeling. Maybe during the three-run weeks, I'll add an extra X-training day.

The plan has a little bit of everything. 

• Hills and strides

• Cross training

• (Obviously) long runs

• 400 and miles

• Yasso 800s

Hopefully, this calendar will keep me on track (no pun). But, then again, it did not really work that well last year. 

Plans for NYC Marathon 2020 9+1 Guaranteed Entry

So far, I have completed four of my nine races and my volunteer opportunity. On the docket: 

• NYRR Retro (4M) - July 13

• TCS Marathon Training Session (10M) - July 20

• NYRR Team Championships (5M) - July 27

• NYC Marathon Training (12M) - August 11

• Grete’s Great Gallop (10K) . -October 5

• TCS Marathon (I probably should not use this as one of my 9+1 races, just in case) - November 3

See ya on the streets

See ya on the streets

The first week’s training plan

Race Report: NYC United Half Marathon

You get the race that you train for. 

Going into this race, I really had no true expectations or goals aside from finishing. Although I did not run as well as I wanted to (due to lack of training on my part), I am glad that I went through with it. The night before the race, I was on the verge of not doing the race, but I am glad that I went through with it.

For this entry, I guess that I could break this up in a few parts. 

Pre-race

Although I was assigned to Wave 1, I knew that I was not in Wave 1 shape. Plus, I did not want to have to arrive to Prospect Park by 6:25 am to check my bag. Then, it hit me. Do I really need or want to check a bag?  If I did not check a bag, then I could run in any wave, thus setting back my start time from 7:30 am to 8:40 am. Aka, I could wake up later.

The MTA gods were not with me.

My plan was to leave the apt. at 6:00 am so I could run in the second wave. Yeah, that did not go so well. The idea was to take the A train to Metrotech and the F train from Metrotech to Prospect Park. First, the A train, which does make any stops from 125th street to 59th street and runs express, was running local from 125th street. Second, the F train was severely delayed so I had to take another A train further into Brooklyn, then take the G train (really, the G?) to Prospect Park. By the time I walked the mile or so from the subway to the security checkpoint, I knew that I would not make Wave 2. That said, I was not too bothered since I was kind of easy breezy with my start plans. At this point, I really wished that I had prepared a sandwich or something because I was kind of hungry before starting. 

Miles 1 - 4:


The first third of the half-marathon gave us a bit of a tour of Prospect Park and took us through the streets of Brooklyn. During these miles, I started off pretty slow because I did not want to risk injuring anything or running out of steam during the first part of the race. Late January was the last time that I ran anything over 8 miles. Plus, I was concerned that the first three to five miles were going to be pretty hilly. I probably could/should have pushed myself harder, but I did not want to risk the end of the race. Looking back at my experience, I am glad that I did not push myself any harder during this part because I probably would not have finished. 

There were not really too many crowds out during this part of the race, which was kind of weird, but we did spend some time in the less popular sections (to me) of Prospect Park. 

Miles 4 - 8:

This part of the half-marathon took us through downtown Brooklyn and into Manhattan. Crossing the Manhattan Bridge was one of the things that I looked forward to . . . and feared. I was surprised that I did not struggle too much with the Manhattan Bridge. I do not know why, but I thought that we were going to be running on the pedestrian and bike paths, which have very steep inclines. However, we ran across the upper level of the bridge, which had a gradual increase in steepness. I thought that I would have to walk the incline of the bridge so I was quite happy that I managed to run the entire bridge. 

The Manhattan Bridge

Arriving in Manhattan was so lackluster. There were hardly any crowds. Then again, I am comparing the experience of crossing a bridge into Manhattan from my NYC Marathon experience. In the NYC Marathon, you can hear the crowd's cheers on Manhattan's 1st Avenue roaring from the Queensboro Bridge. In last weekend's half, you barely heard a peep. There was someone with a loudspeaker telling us that we had seven miles left.  I guess something is better than nothing. 

Miles 8 - 12

This portion of the half marathon took us through some great and iconic NYC sites: the UN, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central, Bryant Park, Times Square, Carnegie Hall, and Central Park. 

The first part of the segment was kind of nostalgic because we ran past NYU School of Medicine, which is where I completed my graduate studies. We actually past my old apartment building and old laboratory. 

 So many memories of boozing and cruising around Murray Hill. I mean, concentrating on my studies in immunology and molecular oncology. 

Again, I was expecting more folks along the course. 

It was during this part of the half that I was becoming quite fatigued and a bit over the race. One cool aspect of the NYC Marathon is there were large crowds (maybe not in the Bronx) that power you through the race. For the NYC Half, you kind of had to power yourself through it. The large majority of this chunk of the race is pretty flat so that made life a little more simple, which took my mind off of my fatigue. I pretty much cranked up my tunes and kept saying "one foot in front of another."

I started to overheat a bit and, at mile 11, had to walk a little. I think taking a bunch of selfies, pictures, and videos in and near Times Square kind of drained my mojo. The sad part is many of the Times Square pictures did not come out right so pretty much a bunch of time wasted. 

Miles 12 - 13.1

Absolute disaster. I totally forgot about the little hills sprinkled in Central Park. These hills are not super steep or difficult to climb, but my legs were pretty much done at this point. Around mile 10, I started to feel soreness in both of my quads, which was general pain from not running for the past 45 or so days. My bad. To get back into the groove and to finish strong, I tried to fartlek between light posts in Central Park, but after three or four fartleks, I had to walk again. I think this is the first time that I ever had to walk during the last mile of any race. But hey, I should be happy that I made to mile 12 without too much of a struggle. 

Although it was not my best half-marathon (and surprisingly not my worst), I still had somewhat of a blast. Well, a blast until the last mile. That last mile was a true killer.

Post Race:

I was so lucky because the finish is pretty close to the bus line that more or less drops me off in front of my apt. Although the bus takes longer than the subway, I do not think that I could have walked up and down a bunch of stairs for the 2 or 3 train.

Once I arrived to Harlem, I treated myself to a splendid, yet simple, brunch at Harlem Shake. I even got myself a nice mimosa. Once the cashier found out that I ran a half-marathon, she really hooked me up the champagne portion of the mimosa. BTW, the grits with turkey sausage are AMAZING.

United NYC Half Marathon Training Week 7 (Feb 2nd 2019)

Planned mileage: 17.5mi

Completed mileage: 18.5mi

Actually, with this training update, I think that I may be on the right path for training for the United NYC Half Marathon. For once, I completed all of my planned training goals, and my back did not bother me as much . . . for the most part.

Let’s get this started.

Monday:

Planned: 50min X-train

Completed: Elliptical and strength training

Unfortunately, I arrived at the gym kind of late and was unable to do as much as I wanted to with my strength training (arms and chest). But something is better than nothing.

Since I did not do much on Monday morning, I had planned to run with Harlem Runs. In a previous post, I mentioned that I wanted to run with a running group. Harlem Runs has weekly Monday and Wednesday runs so I figured it would be a good start. I arrived home from work to change into my cold-weather running clothes, but the BF informed me that he washed our clothes AND the dryer was broken. No run for me because my cold-weather clothes were all wet. Oh well, there’s always next week.

Tuesday:

Planned: 4.5mi

Completed: 4.5mi, 10min stair climber, 35min stretching

Man, I hate treadmill running.

Wednesday:

Planned: 8 X 400m intervals

Completed: Rest. I think that I went out for drinks with friends after work. 

Thursday:

Planned: 3mi

Completed: 8 X 400m intervals; broken up 3mi run; 45min strength and weight training

What polar vortex? Since the temperatures were around 4 degrees, these runs were obviously done on a treadmill. One cool (no pun) thing about this polar vortex was the gym was virtually empty. Score.

Since I skipped Wednesday workout, I combined the intervals with my “3mi” run. I say “3mi” because I did a 0.5mi warm-up followed by the eight intervals and a normal 2.5mi “recovery” run. Actually, my workout was kind of awesome. Aside from the first two intervals, all of the other ones was sub 2 mins.

Friday: 

Planned: Rest

Completed: 20min elliptical and 30min stretching 

Saturday: 

Planned: 9mi

Completed: 9mi 

This run was kind of make or break for me, especially after what happened with last week’s long run. Last week, my back really started to hurt within the first two miles of my long run. I managed to complete this run in Central Park; unfortunately, I had to walk a couple of times. But, 9 miles are 9 miles. I really noticed that I need to stop relying so much on the treadmill because it gives me a false sense of security when I eventually start running outside. In my defense, it has been really cold. Although I walked a few times (those damn Harlem and Sister Hills), I managed to eek out fartleks for a mile or so during miles 7 and 8. Or was it during miles 6 and 7?

Sunday: 

Planned: Rest

Completed: 20min stair climber, 60min strength and stretching, and a couple of bike rides through the city.

All in all, I had a GREAT training week, which is something that I have not been able to say in a VERY long time. I just hope that I did not overdo it, making this training week a hot mess. My back pain has greatly reduced; I think taking out the glute extensions was a major factor. Today after work, I was thinking about going to Zumba class, but maybe I should sit it out and actually take a REAL rest day.

Goals for this week:

-Definitely go running with the Harlem Runs crew. I’m thinking that I will go on Wednesday since that is the group speed workout day.

-Begin increasing the distance for my interval runs (800m or 1600m intervals).

-Although this may not happen this week, but I need to start introducing more hills into my runs. The first part of the new half-marathon’s course is somewhat hilly, and we have to cross a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. For this Saturday’s long run (10mi), I think that I will incorporate the Manhattan Bridge, which on the United NYC Half’s course.