Year of the Marathon

I signed up for the Chicago Marathon!  I somehow managed to do so rather painlessly.  Instead of waiting until 1:00 p.m. for registration to open last Tuesday afternoon, I went online 5 minutes early.  I was able to avoid the gridlock that seemed to affect everyone else who tried to register.

Only once in my running life have I ever run more than one marathon in a year, and that was the year I ran the Long Island Marathon and the NYC Marathon in the same year.  Waaaaaayyyyy back in 1995!  This year, I'm signed up for 3 marathons, Boston, Chicago, and NYC.  Why the sudden fondness for marathons?  Well, I've been signed up for Boston ever since I deferred running last year's Boston.  I signed up for NYC because last year's NYC was cancelled, and I figured I would run this year's for fun.  I signed up for Chicago because I will try to PR there.  I had planned on trying to PR at Boston, but I know I won't be in the best shape for that race.

I hope I won't regret running all these marathons.  My knee is still bothering me from the 60K back in November.  Some people tried to convince me to sign up for the Philly Marathon so that I would qualify to be a Marathon Maniac.  Three words for them.  Not gonna happen.

I had fun pacing Tiffany for the second half of her NYCRUNS Half Marathon.  I also ran about 5 miles with Rey who was running the marathon.  I did 15 miles total.  The soreness in my legs makes me more than a little concerned about my Boston training.  Fifteen miles is really not much, but it's the farthest I've run in 3 months.  I am NOT ready to do 26!

Pre-race fuel

A Setback

So, my knee had been about as good as it's been since I injured it in the NYRR 60K back in November.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of running 11 miles last Saturday and immediately followed that up with the Manhattan Half Marathon on Sunday.  I woke up the following day with more soreness in my knee than I've felt in a long time.  I had visions of a cancelled Empire State Building Run-Up (ESBRU) and Boston Marathon.

My knee bothered me all week.  I took a day off yesterday, did a run/walk of only 3.5 miles this morning, and will take tomorrow off.  I'm hoping that will be enough rest so that I can participate in the ESBRU  and resume marathon training next week.