Run All the Places

I have a challenge for those that are reading this! Before reading about what it is, just say yes! Got the Post marathon blues? (I do, it's a thing and I am still not ready to blog about the race, but you can  check out my course review on BibRave here  MCM BibRave review  ) Don't run marathons and have the I ate too much Halloween candy and I need some motivation to lose weight before the Holiday Season kicks off? Sign up for Turkey Trot! Whether you are a runner or not a Thanksgiving race is a fun ACTIVE activity you and your family can do together before eating gracious grandiose amounts of food. It also is a good way to get motivated to stay in shape during the Holiday season. I have been running Thanksgiving races since I picked up the sport in high school. One of my best friends and her dad invited me to run my first one and I have made it a holiday tradition. Back then, we had to travel 30 minutes out of the way to find the nearest Turkey Trot. Now thankful...

Everything in training can go right. You can run a PR in the half-marathon a few months before the full you are training for. You can hit your goal times in your workouts. You know you are as fit as  you can be on race day but the unexpected happens and your plan starts to crumble. How you deal with the unexpected becomes the real challenge. Having a marathon where everything went wrong and your plan didn't work can cause you to lose your mojo. I have learned that having a back up plan is how you take back your race, it is how you save your mojo. I lost mine a few years ago and it took me awhile to get it back. I have been chasing a not so secret marathon goal for a few years now, 3:15. It is a time I know that I am fully capable of hitting. I lost hope in ever achieving this goal for a few years because I lost focus. I lost the belief that I could do it. I stopped training smart. I ran but I didn't run quality. It wasn't until after my last Boston Marathon, when I didn...

It has been a long week. I am coming up on my 9th marathon and tapering is still the hardest part of training for me. It is not the 20 mile runs, not the two-a-days,  nor the tempo runs in humidity. Its the week of  tapering. The week where you have to relax because you have done the work and you need to let your body prepare for what you are about to do to it (run 26.2 miles).  This week is filled with anxiety for me. Have I done enough? Am I resting too much? Maybe I should squeeze in a hard workout so I don't lose my fitness.   Tapering is simply backing off the volume and intensity of training and resting your body so you can benefit from the hard work. It is necessary if you want to run your best on race day. You are not going to run your best when you are exhausted. You have to let your body respond to the work.  I know this but I am anxious. I am ready to go fast. I am ready to go try to tackle that 3:15 that I have been gunning f...