5:20 A.M. ARGGHHHH

My alarm goes off at 5:20 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday as those are my "cross training days". Its always a 50/50 chance that I wake up or I go back to sleep for another hour…. Its amazing what an extra hour can do for you.

Today was one of those days when I didn't need the hour and I got up. I knew that I had to go to the gym to do 3 to 5 miles of running and work on my knee, but sometimes my bed has this hold on me and its so hard to get out of. My real motivator for getting up? I knew that once I got to work I would have half of a wheat bagel with Lox cream cheese and tomatoes on it… Really, it's the little things that seem to make me happy. :)

And, sure enough, I got there at 5:40 a.m., caught up on the news and the headlines and ran for 3.5 miles, I now officially dislike running on a treadmill. After my 3.5 mile run I worked on my knee, which now feels great. I have learned that I have to keep icing it after every run and keep working it out. If I don’t my Physical Therapist, Danielle Napolitano, would be so upset.
FYI, if anyone needs an awesome PT check out www.finishlinept.com the staff is great and I love both Michael and Danielle. Andre is pretty awesome, too.

Question: Did anyone in New York City notice how humid it was yesterday ? Our workout started, as they always do, with our warm up and stretching and then the fun part started as we were explained the course.

Here is our workout description:
Begin with a half mile warm-up, then complete the pickup/jog routine below. To be clear a Pickup is when you run at about a 80% effort.
2:00 pickup followed by a 1:00 jog
2:00 pickup followed by a 1:00 jog
3:00 pickup follow by a 1:00 jog
2:00 pickup follow by a 1:00jog.
This is one cycle, you will complete two of these pickup/jog cycles.

This workout was a lot better than last week's speed workout and I enjoyed it so much more. The best part of our training was that we worked out with our new coach, Brian. Now Brian is an exceptional coach….. well, maybe not exceptional. More like CRAZY!! His goal is to run a marathon in all 50 states so far he has done 16 in 3 years. Can you see why I call him crazy?! Also, did I forget to mention that he finishes a marathon in a little under 3 hours??? That's 26.2 miles in 3 hours!! Oh, and another important fact…he is also taking pictures as he runs the marathon. Can we say AH-MAZING?!

All in all, Monday and Wednesday's workouts were great and now I have Saturday to look forward to. 11 miles at 8:00 a.m. in Queens. This should be fun/interesting. I am also going to start bringing my camera because my phone is just not cutting it. Next post there will be pictures of us before and after.
I am not quite up to Brian's level….YET!

MM