The Start of Marathon #3

I started training for the New York City marathon this week. I’m so excited about this race! It almost seems unreal that I’ll be running it in just about 16 weeks. I did my first long run on Sunday. 10 miles with an average pace of 9:43. Feeling pretty pleased about that. My knee didn’t really bother me. I ran pretty hard. I’m excited to get started training for marathon #3!

The start of a new training cycle leads me to reflect on the start of training for marathons #1 and #2. #1 was exciting and challenging. I wasn’t sure I could do it or what it would be like. I had become a bit bored with the half marathon. I was inspired by Boston 2013. I loved training for marathon #1. It pushed me to do things like run 11 miles alone on vacation. It got me asking colleagues to run with me at conferences. I took on distances I had never fathomed before. I loved nearly every minute of the training. I didn’t care for my finishing time.

Marathon #2 was sort of a revenge event. Or maybe call it redemption because that sounds better. I read everything I could find about how to get faster and run a better race. I joined a gym, got a better training plan, started working out 6-7 days a week instead of four. I teamed up more seriously with Fast Friend and Snarky Girl. Thank goodness, since it ended up taking both of them to get me through marathon #2!

Marathon #3 is all about getting faster. I’m working with a coach for the first time so that is very new. I also suspect that I got many of the “easy” gains last time around. This is going to be a lot more work. I’m super excited about the possibility of running faster. I also expect I will get to know some new people this time around. And at the end, a marathon in the Big Apple!