Playing catch up with these posts yet again! One nice thing about November is that I am insanely busy with photoshoots (mostly families) – a nice “problem” that has made me continue to put off writing these last few posts. But it’s getting down to the wire, so here goes.
Week 15 of training was officially my first week of the taper, resulting in ten fewer miles than I ran the week before. It wasn’t exactly a “rest” week: Friday’s tempo was my favorite run of the marathon buildup: the 10-mile marathon pace tempo. I absolutely love these runs, because they’re the best indicator of what I might be able to do on race day.
I haven’t written much about my goals for the race. Partly because they keep changing, partly because I’m a little hesitant to make any public predictions lest I fail to meet my expectations. I’ll say this much: I’ve gotten really comfortable running at about an 8:45 pace and being able to sustain that for a while (all of my marathon-pace tempos have been averaging about an 8:35 pace) so I’d like to stay at about an 8:45 until I get over the Queensboro Bridge and then see what my legs can do from there.
Truly, if I can run a sub-4-hour marathon (a 9:09 pace or faster), I’ll be happy.
Sunday’s long run was interesting: I made a point to run every mile slower than a 10:00 pace. This used to feel normal; these days, it feels pretty sluggish. But I wanted to purposely slow it down for a purely low-intensity run. It was worth it. Here I am right after that run, in a t-shirt instead of a sports bra – a good indicator of how not sweaty a pace I went that morning.
For this week’s Dad Story, I thought I would give the floor to my nephews. They all loved my dad so much. To be honest, the loss of my father makes me feel worse for them than I do for myself. I got four and a half decades with him. They will not be able to say the same. While I’m grateful they got to know him, I wish they had gotten more time.
So here are my nephews on their grandpa.
“I remember my Papa on birthdays. When we were eating birthday cake that Mom made and Papa would say, “I don’t like it.” And everybody froze. Then, he would smile and say, “I don’t like it. I LOVE IT!” And Mom would be relieved, we would laugh and continue eating cake!” – Logan, 10
“What I love about Papa is that he was confident and generous and always believed in me. I loved playing baseball with him in the front yeard. He taught me how to play.” – Dylan, 8
“I love that Grandpa was the bestest person in the world.” – Kellan, 6
“I love Grandpa because I liked playing with him.” – Lucas, 4
My Body Is A Machine 