Week 2: Corporate Challenge

Well in week two I started slacking..BUT you'll be happy to know I finished strong. I skipped my Saturday training session for a yoga retreat upstate. In case you didn't already know yoga and pilates is much harder than it looks. I was equally as sore after completing three yoga / pilates classes over course of two days as I was after my first run.

Tuesday I skipped training because I had not zero energy bars and was counting down the minutes until I left work. BUT on Wednesday, I participated in the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge. This was a 3.5 mile run in Central Park. I know last week I talked about how much I hate running in Central Park, but I've come to realize that if you're a runner living in New York City it is a necessary evil (yes I said the largest patch of greenery in NYC can be evil).

Long story short every company, non profit, university, etc. has a team in the Corporate Challenge, this is obvious by the sea of different color T-shits. By the way, I must say that Amex had the best T-shirt out there. I ran into some colleagues when I arrived and we made our way from the Amex tent to the start. There was a sea of people waiting to begin the race so it took a while to get to the actually starting line. When we did I put on my iPod and I was off!



For the first mile I was feeling great and felt like I had a good pace! It got a little dicey after that. Central Park is deceptively hilly so even a short race can be difficult. Shortly after the mile one marker I felt like I was going to pass out, I even had to stop and walk a couple of times. At a certain point I thought, surely I've missed the mile 2 marker there is no way one mile can be this long...But I was wrong, about two minutes later I crossed the mile 2 marker.


At this point I felt like I had run 10 miles and of course like Murphy's Law, the mile 2 marker was at the bottom on a hill, I was developing a blister on my left foot and my headphones kept sliding out of my ears. So feeling defeated I just stopped and started walking. For the first time since I set out on this journey, I thought to myself, how the hell are you going to get through a marathon if you can't even run 2 miles!?! It was like a light bulb went off for the first time...running a marathon is hard AND more importantly training for a marathon is hard! I was so blinded by the "eye of the tiger" in taking this on that I never thought about the process to get to the finish line.


After a brief moment of self loathing I thought the race is in October Marlena, you have some time to get it together. So half way into mile 2 I turned on my power song of the week (Lady Gaga - Telephone) and started running again. Before I knew it I crossed the mile 3 marker and then the finish line! What a relief I was done. Patience is not my strong point, but I realized that to go from zero to 26.2 you have to have a lot of it!



What Did I learn About Running That Day?

1) Just like Rome, marathon runners are not built in a day slow and steady really does win the race
2) I need some better sock that prevent blisters
3) It's hard to listen to a power song when your headphones keep slipping our of your ears so I'll need to upgrade