Sure has been a while since I’ve updated things here.  The upcoming New York City Marathon has taken a back seat to some other recent developments in my life.  I’m still super excited to be headed to the Big Apple, but anything near a PR is out the window.

Took five days off for a Phish show last month.  One of my favorite bands, and it was my first time seeing them live.  The show was only three days long, but it took another two days to recover from the experience.  Taking nearly a week off during the crux of a marathon training block isn’t recommended very often.  And then there was that whole marriage road trip thing.  Ten days, lots of hiking, but not much running.  My current marathon PR of 2:53 is pretty much the limit of my abilities, and to get anywhere close to that takes me three or four months of super high intensity.  And that just hasn’t been there. 

Complicating matters even more is the fact that I got into a race called the Mount Mitchell Challenge, a 40 mile trail run up and down North Carolina’s highest mountain.  Can’t wait for that one, and lately I’ve found myself wanting to run in the mountains and on the trails instead of hitting the roads or the track, which is where I should be spending time if I’m gearing up for a road marathon.

So I’m armed with all kinds of excuses.  But I’ll still be ready to throw down on November 4^th, and I’m going to run as hard as I can for as long as I can.  Poor fitness won’t give me the luxury of a taper, I’m just going to train hard right through race day, and then hope for a miracle.  And when the gun goes off, I’m going to run sub three pace as far as I can make it.  Hopefully that distance is 26.2 miles.