Howdy and happy Thursday,

My poor little blog was down for most of the day yesterday. So I reached out to my 10 followers to give them the bad news. Somehow life carried on.

When I was finally able to log on I saw that Angela from Love the Running had nominated me for a Liebster award.

liebster award

Thanks so much!

So this is what I’ve learned. The Liebster Award is an online award for bloggers, given by bloggers. It’s a great way to find new blogs to follow as well as promote blogs you enjoy reading. The general rules are:

Thank the blogger who presented the award and link back to their blog. 
Answer the 10 questions the blogger asked of you. 
Nominate 10 different bloggers.
Ask 10 different questions to the nominees.
Notify nominees that they are nominated.

So here are the 10 questions I’ve been asked:

1. Would you rather workout in the heat or the cold? Cold!
2. Do you exercise in the morning or at night? late morning or afternoon when i can otherwise first thing in the morning
3. Why did you decide to start blogging?  I spent lots of my time posting on Facebook about my running endeavors or my anxiety and realized my FB friends might be sick of me. So the idea of a blog which could become a place for me to spew about my love of running and how it keeps me sane seemed very appealing.
4. Who’s your favorite celebrity? Charlize Theron
5. Where do you live and what’s something you love about it? I live in Staten Island, one of the 5 boroughs of New York City…you know….where the NYC Marathon starting line is=) I love that I’ve lived here all my life and am so familiar with every nook and cranny.
6. Do you have any pets? Yes, a 5 year old labradoodle named Duncan
7. What’s your favorite thing to cook? I can scramble a mean egg and boil water for pasta! LOL!
8. How do you stay motivated? I stay motivated by social media and blogs…seeing others post about sacrafices of sleep to get in a workout etc etc. makes me feel like a wimp for even thinking of skipping out
9. Favorite vacation destination? I love California. I keep going back. 
10. Link to your favorite blog post that you’ve written! I wrote a 5 part series of posts recapping this event I did last September where I ran 5 half marathons in 5 days in 5 states. Here’s the link to part 5 which has links to parts 1-4 in it as well. It was quite an epic trip! 

Thanks again Angela!

I am nominating only 3 bloggers because I don’t really read more blogs that haven’t already been nominated =) These 3 are friends I’ve met through fitness first (running or kickboxing) and then discovered they had blogs so they aren’t just “virtual” friends =)

Jane @ Jane and Alex • Tara @ Chanes of Love • Lisa @ The Rescue Baker

My questions are:

1. What’s your favorite flavor ice cream?
2. Are you happy with the name you were given or have you always secretly wished it was different?
3. Are you the type to power through pain of a headache or muscle ache or do you take tylenol or advil for everything?
4. If you could use any color pen to write with what color would it be?
5. Was your answer to #4 your favorite color as well?
6. How many states of the US have you been to?
7. Favorite meal of the day
8. If someone were throwing you a birthday party what would you want the theme to be?
9. Do you use Pinterest?
10. Chocolate or Vanilla?

This was fun! Hope you all enjoyed reading. 

So today I took a long walk with the dog…

taking care of business

and then a short run…

It was kinda chilly. Glad I wore a light jacket. With only 4 more planned runs before the NJ Marathon, I was REALLY hoping to feel the effects of tapering today. But I didn’t:( I actually felt quite achy, tired and sluggish. I had music playing but honestly I was too busy thinking about all the details of race day and don’t think I actually heard any of the music. Ironically one of the details is how to carry my earbuds without putting them in my ears until I’m ready to cue up some music. Something tells me i’m going to be safety pinning things everywhere.

While I spent 54 minutes thinking about race day details I also thought about what I need to start doing right now…so without further ado….a list:

With 10 days to go before a marathon make sure to do these 5 things: 

• Drink more water!

• Eat a little cleaner (increasing carbs a few days before)!

• Stretch and foam roll like it’s your job!

• Get plenty of sleep!

• Practice finish line photo smile in the mirror!

Feel free to answer any of the questions I asked the nominees in the comments below if you feel like sharing.

Sometimes I just can’t be creative with my post titles. So, here are some Friday Favorites:

1. Inspirational: You must read about these 7 inspirational Boston Marathon stories. That Jeff Bauman and his wife…..they are my heroes!
2. Happy Chicken: I ran 4 miles Wednesday and was so happy about my decision to chicken out of my NJ Marathon goals because I was struggling so much that I most definitely would have been grouchy had I been trying to keep a certain pace. I think I ran too soon after a big meal and after today’s run I also think the seasonal allergies are getting to me.
3. Capris: Yep, I ran again yesterday.
   

   Testing out the Saucony Bullet capris

   The sole purpose was to give my new running capris a test. I went ahead with the Saucony Bullet capri recco (Thanks Steph!) and they fit great! They didn’t budge one bit. And I LOVE the side mesh pockets that are big enough to hold my iPhone 6 and fuel. I might be able to lose the spi-belt for races if I wear these. The only issue is that I sweat so much. I’ll have to get a waterproof case for my phone. In the 3 miles I ran with it the camera lens got all wet since it’s the only part of the side of the phone facing my thigh that isn’t protected by the case. But the phone stayed put and I didn’t even feel it. I picked the pattern over solid because I saw a review that said if you sweat a lot it will look like you peed yourself. LOL. I have to say the pattern does a great job of masking that.

   

   This big iPhone 6 fits in the pocket.

   

   Ta-dah!

4. Freshly Groomed: Duncan went to the groomer and upon returning home exhausted he grabbed his corn on the cob toy and proceeded to take it to bed for an afternoon siesta. I love how he picked a color coordinating toy.
   

   sleeps with yellow things

5. Seeing Duncan’s Pal: Before the groomer we walked at the park and bumped into Chance, the boxer, Duncan’s pal. We haven’t seen Chance in at least 6 months and I think his tongue grew a few inches.
   

   This is Chance and his ridiculous tongue

6. Talking About Running: I was interviewed for a podcast series this week and it should be out next week. I’ll share all the details as soon as I get them. Stay tuned! Spoiler alert: I admit to wanting to run another 5 half marathons in 5 days in 5 states like I did at the Center of the Nation Series.
7. Honeysuckles: They’re starting to come out—earlier than usual—but I’m not complaining.
8. Sunsets: Especially when the create a glowing doodle tail.
   

   he’s glowing

   What are your Friday Favorites?

Hi,

First, with today being the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bomings, and with Monday being this year’s Boston Marathon I thought it would be the perfect time to share this opportunity for you to feel the intense passion my friend Roger has for running and for helping find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis.

Roger is one of the 5 of us who ran the Mainly Marathons Center of the Nation Series back in 2013.

Roger in Wyoming on his self-declared “Boston Strong” day. We all wore blue to support the Boston victims

The short version is Roger lost 113 pounds in 9 months to run the Boston Marathon and raise money to help support Team Boomer and the important research being done to conquer Cystic Fibrosis.

Roger’s niece Julia has CF and while Roger was morbidly obese and could barely breathe he realized that his niece was also struggling to breathe. But he had a choice to remedy that. He’s been a force like no other I’ve yet to meet in my life. You must go here to donate if you can. He chooses one marathon a year to be his big fundraising effort and this year it’s Big Sur.

Here’s his amazing video:

Best of Luck to you Roger and I can’t wait to see photos from the race! Big Sur is a sight like no other.

____________

In other big news Duncan got his stitches out yesterday! Yippee!

And I’ve been eating too many Peanut M&Ms.

There is no such thing as sharing. I don’t share my Peanut M&Ms

I was feeling rather sore in 2 spots after the Love Run, my left calf and my right piriformis. So I didn’t run at all on Monday and Tuesday. But Wednesday and yesterday I ran about 4 miles each at an easy pace.

Wednesday easy 4

Thursday easy 4

My calf still feels a bit achy and i’m actually planning to get in my long run later today, so i’ve been wearing a compression sleeve, and massaging and foam rolling it, and using ice/heat too. After today, I’ll most likely take a few days off completely.

____________

NJ Half Marathon Goals

So now I’ll tell you about my goals for the NJ Half Marathon in 17 days. I was going to keep them a secret but something compelled me to share. First of all, after 3 years running the full at NJM, this will be my first time running the half there.

Setting my marathon PR at the NJ Marathon in 2014

The last 2 races (Cherry Blossom 10 miler and Love Run Half Marathon) I’ve kept a 10 min overall pace with plenty of splits between 9:37 and 9:45. And I was completely in control of my breathing the entire time. I’d probably consider these tempo runs. So, I have decided—barring any injury or crappy weather on race day—that I want to push myself and try to keep a 9:45 pace for the entire race and finish sub 2:10. I’ve run about 35 half marathons in my life ranging in time from 2:05 to 2:54 and only 3 of those were sub 2:10 (2:05:03, 2:07:54 and 2:09:18) So if I can keep to a 9:45 pace I can finish in 2:08. I know it’s going to be tough but I want the challenge. And this course is not only flat, but I know every turn like the back of my hand having run the full marathon 3 years plus doing multiple training runs on the course. I’m not going to be devastated if I can’t achieve this goal but I’m excited about trying 🙂

What or who inspires you?

Any fun weekend plans?

Will you be watching the Boston Marathon on Monday?