New York Marathon Plan
Only four more sleeps until I’ll be running the New York Marathon. And it’s really sinking in now. I’m feeling an uneasy combination of fear and excitement. And that’s probably a good thing. Just the size of this race is hard for me to wrap my head around. There will be more than double the number of runners than there were at the Walt Disney Half, my largest race to date.
My last marathon was quite the disaster. I had high expectations of getting a big PR. And it couldn’t have been farther from that. I wanted to quit at 8 miles, but managed to finish, eventually. Now I know how it really feels to fall apart during a race. Not such a big deal when it’s just a 10K. But a marathon feels like it will go on forever when you hit the wall at 8 miles.
Sure, when I look back on my training log leading up to that race, I see all the evidence why I would have a bad race. Dealing with multiple injuries, too many long and hard runs too close to the marathon, and just not that much weekly running volume.
It’s been almost a year since that race. And I’ve been determined this time around to learn from my mistakes. I’m doing the same higher volume training plan that I used when training for The Goofy Challenge. (My last marathon PR happened that weekend). But when things didn’t feel right during a run, I would slow it down or cut it short. I skipped workouts when life got too crazy, and didn’t beat myself up about it.
And this new way for me of following a plan has been working. I’m not injured. Things are feeling good. And I’m getting faster, with new PRs for the 5K and 10K this fall. This is really encouraging.
But I’m still anxious about the race. Anything could happen. I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get a new PR, previously 4:22:09 at the Walt Disney Marathon in 2012. Four more days and I’ll know more.
