How I thought my week would play out: Spending time with my already-born niece Getting ahead on work and school before my "vacation" Finishing up training with a few short and easy runs Taking extra care of my body with stretching, rolling, and relaxation Mentally preparing with messages of affirmation to myself How my week has played out: Anxiously awaiting the late birth of my niece, fearing she might not arrive before I left for Scranton Trying to be there for my older niece while my sister and brother-in-law prepared for their new baby, which inevitably meant Neglecting work and school and deciding to postpone my grad school application purely out of stress and anxiety Dreading my last few runs, which were a mixed bag of slow, a little less slow, and draining Getting too little sleep because my niece decided to arrive in the wee hours of the morning, mid-week, which meant taking care of the older niece during the labor and delivery (which I absolutely d...

For weeks and weeks I had been looking forward to doing my last long run of training before the Steamtown Marathon , just six days away now. It was only 12 miles, and compared to all the other runs I'd been through, it was sure to be a breeze. I was looking so much forward to it, in fact, that I slept right through it Saturday morning. Heard the alarms, but just didn't feel compelled to get up. So I didn't. By the time I actually arose, it was close to 9:00 a.m. Whoops. So I was left with the dilemma of whether to run the next morning, or to try for a long evening run (isn't that how everyone wants to spend their Saturday night?) I opted for the evening run, because I was afraid I'd have the same problem getting up the next morning, and I also just wanted to get the dang thing over with. It would mark a very significant point in training, or rather, the end of training. Plus, there was one more thing I wanted to do for this round of training that I hadn't do...

Last weekend felt sort of like a real weekend--like one that didn't revolve solely around training, or rather, like one that didn't start with a long run that drained the life out of me. Of course, it still started with a long and hard training run, but the training burden had been somewhat ameliorated since completing my last 20-miler the weekend prior. I still wanted to get another hill run in before the marathon, so Tim and I woke up at our usual 4:30 a.m. and grumpily drove about 45 minutes out to San Antonio, Florida. We met up with a few friends and started out in the 68-degree weather and darkness. The guys went off ahead of me and another friend, Cathy, and I was hoping to be able to see them long enough to know which way to turn onto the main road. I brought my handy flashlight that I'd bought for the Longwood run, but it only shined 10 feet out, and the guys were much farther ahead than that. Luckily, one of the guys stopped at the turning point and yelled ba...

Yesterday I ran my final 20-miler of training for the Steamtown Marathon . I knew that if I could make it through that run without injury, I'd be good to go for the race. And I'm happy to report that I did! But the run wasn't without some folly.  Because my youngest niece was having a birthday party on the same day I was scheduled to do this training run, I'd planned ahead for Tim and I to spend the night at my dad's house in Longwood (which is close to where my niece lives). I knew my dad lived very close to the Seminole Wekiva Trail , so I planned the 20-miler on this route. Or so I thought. We knew my dad lived 2.5 miles from the trail, so we would just need 15 miles on the trail, or 7.5 out and back. I used someone's Map My Run route to get an idea of how many miles we'd be able to get at the entrance point from my dad's house. I even "enhanced" the map with my own notations, for Tim's benefit. The map I studied and enhance...

This past weekend I ran my first 20-miler of Steamtown training. It was planned (unlike last year's ), nothing went awry, and I finished it, actually faster than I'd hoped. I ran four early miles on Bayshore prior to meeting with running buddy Nicole--who was running 16--and about 50 others who were running with the Blue Sharks group on Davis Island. Those first four miles were the worst. The air was humid and heavy, and I felt as though I was just dragging myself through the miles. I got back to DI just before 5:30 a.m., when the group run was scheduled to start. People socialized for a bit, and then Nicole and I decided to start. Shortly thereafter, many of the other runners passed us by, which was a sort of frustrating feeling, like at a race, but we kept steady at just under a 10-minute pace. We had a lot of distance yet to go. The mileage through the residential section of DI--about four or five miles--still felt difficult, but once we got out of it and the sun began ...

I'm learning a lot about Florida, after living here for most of my life--and not just from the seemingly recent onslaught of bizarre national news headlines --but also from running in new places. This past weekend I finally went out to the city of  San Antonio , where runners and cyclists gather in hordes for hill training. I've known about this place for a couple of years, but I haven't really wanted to make the 45-minute drive out there so I could endure more difficult terrain on my already-challenging long runs. But because I chose a hilly marathon this year, it was essential that I get in more hill training than the one Ohio run I did the weekend prior. So Tim and I headed out there early Saturday morning to meet a bunch of others at 6:00am. I would be running with my run-buddy Nicole, and neither of us had been there before, nor did we know what route we were running. But luckily some veterans of the course gave us basic directions, and then then guys took off with ...

I'm in about my seventh week of marathon training for Steamtown Marathon  (I didn't have an official start date--or plan--but started doing long runs some time back). Eleven more weeks of training remain. So far, so good. Yesterday morning I ran 15 miles with my friend and training buddy Nicole, and it was (for me) significantly better than last weekend's 12 miles. Part of this was because I'd just started to feel the effects of doing 13- and 14-milers for several weekends in a row without brining my mileage down, but what also helped yesterday's run was that I got to use my new GPS watch, and new running things always make a run better :) Last weekend, while running the 12 brutal miles at Upper Tampa Bay Trail , my old trusty Garmin Forerunner 305  (now discontinued and significantly more expensive than when I bought it) gave out on me. It had been giving me problems since the Nike Women's Half , back in April, mostly not charging properly and taking an extr...

The Choice Marine Corps Marathon vs. Steamtown Marathon The Pros and Cons I missed Marine Corps last year because of an injury, and I really want a redemption race. I thought that signing up for the Nike Women's Half Marathon in DC next month might serve as a redemption race, but I'm not sure it will (although I'm still excited about the race!). Mainly, I'm afraid I'll always feel that I let myself down for that race. And then there's all of the to-do of Marine Corps that I keep hearing about: running through the historical landmarks, being encouraged by tons of local crowd-supporters, and being greeted by all of the Marines at the end (okay, that last one is the main draw). But that is both a pro and a con, because I don't like feeling stuck in large, overpopulated spaces. I don't think that would happen at nearly the same level at Steamtown, whch takes place in Scranton, PA (yes, of Office fame). Also, Steamtown is a net downhill race, which see...