What's Ahead

On Friday, we reunited with all of our Team In Training teammates and coaches for the infamous "Misbehaving Party". While the party was fairly tame overall, I did notice that people spent a lot of time talking about what's coming up rather than simply reminiscing about our recently completed TNT season. Almost everyone has a race or two coming up this Fall, the Philadelphia Marathon seems to be the most popular choice since virtually no one got into in the NYC Marathon. While I haven't yet decided on the Philly Marathon, there are two major races I am registered for at the end of the summer.

I was fortunate to register for the NYC Half Marathon before it sold out in about a day, so it's about time that I start training for it as I am hoping to improve upon my pace from the San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon. If anything running the Branford Road Race last weekend taught me that even short runs can be humbling if you are not fully prepared.

Additionally, we have just put together a 12 person team to participate in the New England Ragnar Relay Race. This is an interesting concept as the 200 mile course from New Haven to Boston is broken down into legs from 3 to 8 miles and each runner will run 3 legs for a total of between 15 and 19 miles over the course of 24 hours. This race starts off near where I grew up and the 2nd leg passes through Branford, CT where I've done a lot of my training for the past 6 months. Check out the website for more info on how the logistics of this race work, it's fascinating and I couldn't be more excited about this race.

Since I'm going to be busy running this summer, I've decided to keep on posting about my progress. I haven't yet decided on a goal for the Ragnar Relay, but my early goal for the NYC Half is to average less than an 8 minute mile pace. I'll re-evaluate this closer to race Aug. 16, but for now I think this will be an ambitious yet attainable goal. Yesterday, I officially started my training and ran 5.03 miles in 49 minutes and 59 seconds (as always according to my Nike+). It was an easy run at a conversational pace and by mile 2 my brother and I were warmed up and comfortable and felt like we could continue at that pace forever, even though we haven't been too comfortable running since the marathon.

For the remainder of the week my projected running schedule is:
Monday: 4 mile run
Tuesday: 6 mile run
Wednesday: 4 mile run
Thursday: 4 mile run
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Eat a combined 10 hamburgers and hot dogs at 4th of July BBQ
Sunday: long run (6-7 miles)

I hope you'll continue to come back and follow my progress as I train for my races this summer. We also expect to get our fundraising totals this week and I will post the results when I get them.