Weekend Potpourri: My BM Training, Your Reader Questions

To celebrate the opening weekend of the New Year, I did 10 miles in Central Park for the first official long run of Boston Marathon training. I’m not sure if it was the cold, the wind, the lack of fitness, or the aftermath of too many New Year cupcakes, but I felt very sluggish out there after about mile 5. My fingers were numb, my lips were chapped, my feet were throbbing and my heart pounded with a ferocity I haven’t experienced in quite some time. To give you a sense of how much fun I had out there today, the best part of my run was when it was over.

Still, I’m glad it got done. 10.15 miles in 1:13:09, which is a 7:12 pace. It wasn’t until I entered these digits into my running log did I realize that that was actually the second fastest 10 mile training run I’ve ever done! Seriously? I’d never would’ve guessed that. My only explanation is that my sense of speed is overly exaggerated now due to all my race PRs during the fall. Although this sudden revelation gave me a jolt of confidence about my current state of fitness, I remain weary that my addiction to speed will eventually lead to injury and pain later on in training.

Let see what Week 2 brings. (Once again, I will be bringing you my weekly training summary as I prepare for the fun run in Boston. Other than this long run, the rest of the training week was rather futile, and not worthy of a recap. We’ll officially kick things off with a more official update next weekend.)

Before I go, I wanted to answer a few questions that were posed to me in the comments from the last post. (You people are definitely an inquisitive bunch!)

1. What about the Half Marathon Grand Prix? Yes, I’m planning to run all five half-marathons of this series for the first time this year. The operative term there is plan because I’ve been planning for Bronx and Brooklyn for three years now but have yet to run in either. Last minute scheduling conflicts, the weather, and injuries have thwarted my previous attempts. I’m hoping it’ll be different this year. Right now, I’ve already registered for Manhattan and the Bronx. Let’s see what happens.
2. How do you like Outliers? I’ve only started the book so I will reserve my comments until I’m further into it, but I’m liking what I’ve read so far.
3. Is NYC conducive to a sub 3:00 marathon? I know most people will disagree with me, but I definitely think sub 3 is definitely doable in NYC, given the right conditions. I’m not sure if it’s the hometown advantage, the tremendous crowd support or the magic/pizzazz of a big town race, but I’ve run my best marathons in NYC. I’m hoping this year’s version will be no exception.
4. And for those who’re inquiring about #7, shoot me an e-mail (address on profile page) with some background info about yourself, your running past, level of training, and your race history and let me know exactly what you need my help in accomplishing. We’ll go from there.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.