Just Keep Running

Riverside Park

If you want to train for a marathon or half marathon, you’re going to have to do long runs. This means each week, you are going to have to head out for a significant amount of time and just run. While speed work is fun for me, I often dread the long run. One of the hard parts of this, for me, is simply finding the time. Since I am home with my son for part of the day and there is not enough time when he is in school, I have been doing my long run on Sunday mornings. However, another hard part is getting over the mental block of believing I can run for that long. 2 and half hours sounds like a daunting amount of time to run.

Because I am only a week away from my first half-marathon, this meant that last week, I ran over 10 miles and I was running for half the afternoon, while my husband took my son to the American Museum of Natural History.

I did this long run along the coast of Manhattan at Riverside Park. I started at about  72^nd Street and ran up to 132^nd Street, turned around and ran back down to 54^th Street, then back uptown again. Heading uptown on the waterfront was a bit chilly, but manageable, with the wind at my back. Running downtown, however, was icy! The cold wind was in my face the whole time, along with the sun.

Sandy Hook

I had the same thing happen the week before, so I was somewhat prepared. I did my 9 mile run on the path at Sandy Hook and it was a gorgeous sunny day, but windy as well. However, there is nothing I love more than running on the waterfront.  I did that run as an out-and-back, as well, which meant I ran from the entrance gate to Fort Hancock and back to the gate, with the wind in my face when I started and at my back on the return.

I’m glad that the weather is getting warmer, so I can run outside these days. Three weeks ago, due to the weather, I was forced to do my long run on a treadmill at the gym. 8 miles on a treadmill is BORING.  To break it up, I thought of it as merely 4 – 2 mile runs and actually got off the treadmill and did a lap of the gym between each. That made it a lot more manageable.

I think it’s very amusing how on these long runs, I go through alternating stages of “Oh, god, I can’t go on!” and “This feels great, I could go forever!” Sometimes, at the end, I feel like I have another couple miles in me, and have to force myself to stop because I don’t want to create an injury I don’t have. This is pretty exciting and makes me look forward to my race next week.