Have we heard from Erika?? Im sure shes travelling and whatnot..hope she came through it healthy.

Well, you haven't until now! I'm back, got home last night at 12:30 a.m. and oh boy am I tired... NYC was great, it was my first time there and a very impressive city. Had fun with niece and her BF, and our nephew (her brother) was there too so good to see him. Had a LOT of fun with our friends on Sunday night and Monday morning. Bugs is right... it's really tough to train for a marathon in the pool. I started out too fast and paid the price later. My goal was 3:45, but I didn't start my Garmin on time (oops) and then couldn't get accurate pace readings on the bridge (lower level) so first 5k was way too fast. By 18 I texted DH to say I was hurting and walking a lot. Still made it sub-4, which is my goal for all non-Equinox marathons, but was disappointed in how badly my legs crapped out on me. My foot was sore, and hurt towards the end, but I was expecting that. I wasn't expecting the total fatigue and cramping in my quads. Oh well, it's over and I'm looking ahead. Race report will be posted later when I catch up here at work. Nice race, Cash! I see faster than the same course last year, but was that a PR for you? Bugs, hope you're ok. You are doing some great mileage and running so well. It sucks you've got this problem with your neck to deal with. Kimmie, yeah on the foot being ok! Nice getting-back-into-it run, and I think you should definitely work for that BQ time. I think you can do it! Hi Murphy, Brian, Dave, Shan and JH! And nice to see Peach on the board again!

Erika, welcome back. Sounds like you made the best of a tough situation. I'm not sure how to respond to the rest of the chatter on here today. 5 miles for me today with the last two hard (last one sub 8). I know I should run easy. My knees are complaining now. It is just hard to go easy when I run with work buddies. Too much testosterone. I'm such an idiot.

Erika, Welcome back from the Big Apple. Glad you made it through without crutches and still a nice time to log. Well done. Hope your foot is better soon. Dave, We should hobble your legs so you have to jog. Kimmie, 'Sometimes'. Do you mean lower or upper body? I like to do a FIRM step workout that is a mix of upper and lower body. I need to get on that bandwagon again. I HATE lifting weights at the Y, but I have a membership. I need a plan for this week for 5K, since I won't have neck to blame poor time on. I think the 1 mile tempo the day before last 5K did not workout so well.

umm Bugs - have you forgotten to update us on something very important??

???

didn't you have your thing removed today? i missed ur earlier post! i'm glad it was a consult and that you guys are just gonna keep an eye out

didn't you have your thing removed today?

Nope, long story..but nope I'm keeping all my lymph nodes for now.

Yes Erika, its a 16 minute pr for the race overall. Did a 2 mile time trial tonight on the track. Had to walk off at mile 1.15. Calf was really barking at me. Good news is up till that point was averaging 7:23 per mile which is decent for me. If I could only keep that pace over any sort of distance, it would be nice. Then swam 1400 yards. The Swim Nazi even said my form looked good during the intervals. And she had me doing 100 yard intervals, on the same time as the others in my section were doing 75 yards. We start laps every 2 minutes. If you finish in 1:45 you get 15 seconds rest. If it takes you 1:59 you get 1 second rest. It sucks for the slower swimmers, they get lots less rest, and they need the rest more than the faster ones. Yes we do intervals in the pool, just like you do on the track. Do em on the bike too. Also do hill repeats on the bike. No hills in the water thank goodness. We do strides on the track. She has us run a bit faster than 5k race pace, but not full on sprint for 100 meters down the straight aways on the track. We cruise the curves, then stride the next straight away. So we run fast twice per lap. My run homework this week is 10 minute warm up. 10 minutes of drills. Start by walking on my heels for 50 yards ( to prevent shin splints) then walk on tip toes for 50 yards to activate the calves. Then we do skipping drills to enhance leg turn over. ( I always feel like I should be wearing a rainbow colored T Shirt when we do these) Then 4 strides = half mile total running. then 4 x 1000 meters at 5k race pace with cruise intervals in between. If it takes me 5 minutes to go 1000 meters then 5 minutes of regular speed jog. Or if not at a track, 4 x 4 minutes hard with 4 minutes of jog. then 4 x 100 meter build to sprint. Build means start at your normal training pace, then over the 100 meters, keep increasing your speed, until near the end of the 100 you are at full sprint speed. Not full sprint the whole 100, gradually building speed over the 100. Then 10 minute cool down. That is our speed homework for the week. We also get swim and bike workouts. Plus you do your normal long runs and other weekly runs as well.

From out on the main boards. Don't miss Mishka's New York marathon race report. Well worth the read. http://www.runningahead.com/forums/topic/c4cf362dee044aa680e9017e909065b6