Things are slowly but surely beginning to come together.

I hit the highest mileage of my training so far and added a fifth day of running. I also was more consistent with doing core work (hello, planks) and had a solid long run where I had my best pace so far. I still struggled with doubts, especially when I wasn’t able to hit paces for the workout, but I can tell the training is beginning to work and I know I’ll be ready come November.

Mileage: 38 miles

Cross-Training: Squeezed in one 20-minute Peloton ride and sprinkled in core work when I could. Goal is to get 4-minutes of planking in per day. I do 2-minutes in the middle and a minute on each side.

Workout: Lance put together a great workout but it was hard and I wasn’t able to hit the pace he had outlined. I did 2

miles of warm-up, 3 hard hill repeats on the same hill I ran up at the beginning of this training cycle. I then basically jumped right into a 5-mile tempo. It was supposed to be progressive and start at 6:20 pace and work down to 6:00 pace. The tempo portion was much slower but I finished still on my fastest mile (6:33). It was a good reminder that doing a tempo starting on fresh legs is entirely different from doing a tempo on tired legs after a hill. The NYC marathon starts on a hill as you cross the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, so even though this workout did not go perfectly it was still great training for the race. The plan is to do same workout again in next 2-3 weeks and hopefully my legs can respond quicker after the hills and get into a faster pace.

Long Run: 15 miles @ 7:41 pace. My map on Strava showed I went even faster, but not sure which one is most accurate. This was definitely my strongest long run so far. Again ran in PV, so feeling good with the amount of elevation gain I’m getting in with these longer runs. Hoping it will help with all the hills in NYC.