My Boston Marathon 2013

I ran the 2013 Boston Marathon and it made me realize how many caring people there are in the world. It seems that almost every person who is even remotely connected to me, contacted me to check on my well-being while I was in Boston. The only thing I can compare it to was feeling like George Bailey at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life" when he realizes how many people care about him and how truly fortunate he is. I am also grateful to all of the people in the running blogger community who sent me well-wishes. I consider all of you my friends, even though I haven't even met some of you. We are bonded by our love for running and when a tragedy happens that friendship is made even more evident. I am truly fortunate to have found a place where I can share the joys and the pitfalls of our sport.

I also want to say how incredible each and every person in Boston and in the towns along the marathon route was. I have never experienced such support, from every friendly volunteer to all of the random people handing out aid and encouragement along the 26.2 route. To think that some of those strangers lined up along the home stretch shouting my name at the top of their lungs were gone or in hospital rooms a handful of minutes later is something I can't even grasp.

I am safely home now, and will post a Boston Marathon race recap soon. 

4/13/2013

My First Speed Workout

The Brooks Hanson Marathon Training Plan calls for speed workouts in the first nine weeks of the 18 week plan. The workouts consist of a total of three miles of speed intervals at 10k pace. Today was supposed to be my first such speed workout of this training cycle. However, I am running an actual 10k on Saturday, so I will be getting more than enough 10k pace running in just two days from now. So, I needed to modify my first track workout!

Mid-workout at the North Park University Track this morning

So, since you are supposed to focus on speed (not distance) in the week before a race, I thought I would run less total distance, but faster. So I decided to do:

• 2 mile warmup
• 1200m fast, 400m jog
• 800m fast, 400m jog
• 400m at all out pace, 400m jog
• 400m run at exactly 10k pace (to get used to what I will be doing on Sun)
• 2 mile cool down

I think the intensity of the workout was just about right, although I am sore right now. I only have 48 hours to recover, so I may be feeling the workout by mile four on Saturday! Next week, I will start the actual speed work called for in the training plan, but I'm sure the Hanson brothers would approve if I did 6.2 miles at 10k pace instead of their recommended 3 mile 10k pace track workout!

A view from my cool down run along the Chicago River

Another view from my cool down

I will run tomorrow, rather than take the day before the race off, because I am participating Kim's December running streak.  So, how is my streak going?

December 2nd: 2.3 miles, 3rd: 4.1 miles, 4th: 8.0 miles, 5th: 8.0 miles, 6th: 9.8 miles, 7th: 5.3 miles, 8th: 2.4 miles, 9th: 10.3 miles, 10th: 2.0 miles, 11th: 8.8 miles, 12th: 6.2 miles, 13th: 6.5 miles.

Anyone else doing the December streak?