We are in week 9 of NYC marathon training now! WOW it has flown by! Week 8 was a pretty good week of training, minus my long run fail on Sunday. That’s ok, though, because I got my ass out of bed and ran when I REALLY wanted to go back to bed.  Ari texted me that morning before her 5K, and I told her I was up but wanted to go back to bed. She replied with “If you go back to bed, I’ll kick your ass! Leave now, before it’s too hot!”, and for that, I love her! That’s when you know you have a true, supportive friend!

So here’s how week 8 went down:

First off, Ari came back from Portland! I have my running buddy back! So for me, the week actually started with track on Wednesday.

Wednesday 8/8: Track today was at 5:30am, and it was Ari’s first track workout since coming back from Portland. I was SO excited to be running with her again! She is kind of like my running rock. She keeps me positive and keeps me going when I wanna stop and lie down on the pavement.

Our workout consisted of a 1600M @ half marathon pace, 1200M @ 10K pace, 800M @ 5K pace, then 400M @ mile goal pace with 400M rest intervals in between. It was a really good workout. We kicked ars on our splits! Here are the splits my Garmin recorded for me:

My Garmin was a little slow at recording the accurate pace for the first split (split 3), because I didn’t reset my lap until after we started. Ari’s Garmin said we ran an average of 8:49 on our 1600M. (Splits 1 and 2 were the warm-up).

All in all, I felt very accomplished after we were done with that track session! I can’t wait to see how much my speed really has improved once it cools down, like I have said before.

Thursday 8/9: I missed Monday’s run of 5 miles, so I ran with Ari, and we decided to do 5 on Thursday instead of 3. We ran the first 4.5 at a decent pace, then used the last 0.5 miles to cool down. Here are the splits:

It started off well, but got hot toward the end. Places really need to open before 6am so there are more bathrooms available! One of the disadvantages to running early, I guess. Not enough hiding spots to pop a squat along Warner-Elliott loop, lol!!

I had another rough night of sleep Friday night, and had to work Saturday, so I postponed my 8 mile long run until Sunday.

Sunday 8/12: REALLY did not want to get up or do much of anything that morning. However, as you read above, I have motivation in the form of Ari and my pride! I went out with aspirations of doing 8, but was running on about 4.5-5 hrs of sleep, and it was hot as %$&*, so I just ran 4. It went just ok. I took a few walk breaks, but ran most of it.

I am getting up before sunrise tomorrow to run my 8 miles, and my friend Karen will be joining me for the last 3.5-4 of them. I can’t wait!

Several members of Team Chances NYC will be running the AFC half marathon in San Diego this weekend, and Ari and I, and her friend Jason, I believe, are included!!

I am SUPER excited, because somehow, I have managed to go my whole life without ever having been to San Diego! Also, I am more prepared for this half than I was for Diva’s, so I am really hoping to PR!

I will definitely be blogging from SD about our experience, and the race. Stay tuned for a fundraising update and information about our silent auction we are putting on for CFCNY 2012!! It’s full of awesome items, and all proceeds go to Chances for Children!

What is the next race you are doing? Do you have a specific goal in mind for your finishing time? Have you ever been to Dan Diego? What is your favorite thing to do there?

Happy Trails!

Stacey