The halfway point of marathon training, week 8! This week goes pretty well. I nailed all of my runs, and strength trained as well. This is the beginning of the hard part of marathon training. After this week is usually when the lull starts to happen foe me. At this point I am still on the training high, and pushing through strong.
Subscribe to my YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/2kSRcAw and you’ll be notified first of my uploads. Tap the play button below to watch and let me know your thoughts!
I am participating in the London Marathon on April 28, 2020 on behalf of Team Sense. Please consider donating to help me reach my fundraising goal of €1700, Thank you!
Onto Week 7 of this years New York City Marathon training! This week was actually really fun. I got my usual swim/run/weight training in, but I also had the chance to hang out with my run buddies outside of running. Its always pretty strange when we get to see everyone outside of our running gear, because 80% of the time we are running, but when we do get to just hang out it is always a blast.
Check out the footage below.
I am participating in the London Marathon on April 28, 2020 on behalf of Team Sense. Please consider donating to help me reach my fundraising goal of €1700, Click the button below to donate. Thank you!
Hello, and welcome to the first episode in my New York City Marathon 2019 training series. I knew that this years training would be unlike previous years, so I thought now would be a great time to document it.
This episode picks up during week 6. I do a little running, swimming, gym workout, and I even travel to Atlanta and volunteer at a race. I promise the next episodes won’t be as long…unless some travel is included in them!
Check out the video below, and let me know your thoughts!
I am participating in the London Marathon on April 28, 2020 on behalf of Team Sense. Please consider donating to help me reach my fundraising goal of €1700, Thank you!
I signed up for this race probably a year ago, and totally forgot about it until maybe a couple months ago. Then totally forgot about it again until maybe 3 weeks ago when my friend said, are we booking flights to Detroit!
First up was the expo. It was at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit. Now, when I go to expos, I go to pick up my bib, and hopefully munch on some free food. Very rarely do I buy anything. Well there was no free food, and I actually did buy something this time. A cute little running pouch. I used it for the race, but will wait to reveal the name until I use it a couple more times to see if I really like it or not.
Joe Lewis statue inside the TCF center
When I travel for races its usually for the weekend only, so I try to see as much of the city as I can in the small amount of time that I have. So the first thing I always do is google things to do in the city. The Joe Lewis fist was one of the top things to see. It was located about a half mile from the TCF center, so that was my first stop.
Walking up to the statue
The statue is located on the median in the middle of a really busy street. If you’re visiting Detroit definitely get your IG worthy shot.
Next up was the Motown museum. Now, I have mixed reviews about Motown. I was so excited to visit, because if you’re black and living in America, you know the story of Motown. Well as soon as you walk in, there is a wall in the hallway with beautiful black and white photos. I took out my phone to record it, and I was immediately yelled out that no photos or video were allowed. The man with the cock eye working the door literally screamed it out. It was extremely off putting, and totally put me in a sour mood. So the tour starts in the hallway, and then we were taken downstairs to a teeny screening room to watch a 15 minute documentary on Motown. I thought it was a waste of time since I really knew most of what was mentioned. I was there to see the house doggone it! From there we went upstairs to another room that had memorabilia. Not a lot I must add, and I have no images to show because we couldn’t take pictures! Then we walked through a tiny hallway of Berry Gordy’s apartment, and downstairs to the recording studio. This was the only place that you could record and take pics. This was extremely odd to me.
Left side view of Studio ARight side view of Studio A
The tour was led by a 17 year old. She was a bit too chipper for my liking, and I just couldn’t take her seriously. I’d give the tour 3 stars. You can probably find a tour of the whole inside on the web. Save your 15 bucks and just go and take pics outside, those are totally free!
This sign is right across the street. There is one right outside of the house as well, but the lighting was better over here!
Next up was a trip to the Belle Island Aquarium. Now I have to say, I enjoyed this way more than Motown. It was a small aquarium, they only had fish, but it was a good variety, the building was beautiful, and it was free! Here are some of the water creatures that I saw.
Inside view of the Aquarium
Pretty right! Right next door was Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory. This place was absolutely stunning! It really is a hidden gem.
Next up was a visit to Eastern Market. Google told me that this was a part of town that had lots of artwork, so I wanted to check it out.
This is just a snippet of some of the artwork, there was a ton.
The infamous Detroit Vs Everybody store was in Eastern Market
After Eastern Market it was time for some grub. I opened up my yelp app, and searched for nearby restaurants. I came across LeCulture Cafe because their loaded mac and cheese with lobster looked divine, and it was only 5 minutes away. I didn’t know at first that they were black owned, so this was a huge bonus, and made me want to dine there even more. The wait was an hour, which is long, but I didn’t mind because I had a slice of pizza in Eastern Market and I wasn’t starving. Their service was a little slow, but our server was great, and the food was excellent, so they more than made up for the not so fast service.
Didn’t get a pic of the apps, but it was yummy too!
The food was reasonably priced.
Now, on to the race. The race started super early at 7am, so that meant a 4:30am wake up call, so that we could get into downtown early, and find a parking spot. We ended up parking at the MGM hotel which was free…score! The race recommended a bunch of lots through spothero. I’m sure they got some kind of kick back from it, but not from me!
Mandatory pre-race selfieIn the corrals headed to the start
The race starts off relatively flat, weaving rights and lefts downtown through the blocks. The first challenge came at the Ambassador bridge into Canada. It was a serious incline.
Ambassador Bridge
Once I got halfway up the incline I started walking and recorded some video for my Vlog. I could already feel my calfs getting tight because it was so steep, so I figured I’d take it easy because we weren’t even at mile 3 yet. The middle of the bridge was extremely shaky. I felt myself getting a bit of vertigo from the bouncing, so I was happy to get off of the bridge.
The view running into Canada
The Canada portion had great crowd support. There were people on every inch of that course in Canada. Yall did a great job ehhhh! The one thing I noticed and didn’t like, was by the time we got to mile 4 there was only 2 water station. After that the stations were spread out every 1.2-1.4 miles. New York has me spoiled, I like my sports drinks every mile!
After 2-3 miles in Canada, we headed through the tunnel back to Detroit. That tunnel was hot! I was sweating bullets in there.
Inside the tunnel
I don’t remember too much after this point. There was a lot of inclines heading up overpasses, but they weren’t so bad. I pretty much took it easy the whole race, documenting my experience, and enjoying myself. I had to use the bathroom from mile 3 on, but at every bathroom there was a line with a ton of people. I really don’t know how I held it in basically the entire race. Here are my splits.
My final thoughts, Detroit the city was OK, I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. To cross to the other side of a block you had to drive down the block and make a u-turn, there were medians everywhere, that totally annoyed me. The race was good. Plenty of crowd support, they could have used more aid stations, great amenities at the end of the race, and free race pics! Detroit is state #16 for me. My next state will be Tennessee in December. Another state that I have never been before, so I’m looking forward to it. Until next time…
So the last time that I did this race on October 11, 2015 I swore it would be my very last time because I absolutely loathe going to Staten Island. Well, turns out, 2015 wouldn’t be my last time, because here I was again in 2019 running the Staten Island half all over again.
Now, the only reason that I registered for this race was because I had New Balance points that were going to expire, and one of the point redemption options was a free race entry. Now, the only reason I had New Balance points to begin with was because I was going to use them to redeem an entry for the London Marathon 2020….well that was a total dud, and a super long story that I won’t get into right now. BTW, I am fundraising for Team Sense for a London Marathon entry. CLICK HERE to donate!
Anywho, I woke up at the early hour of 4:30am to get ready for the race. I was meeting Janis, and then we would drive to Staten Island. Our original plan was to park downtown, and take the ferry over to Staten Island, but I really couldn’t be bothered with the extra commuting.
Heading to the Verrazano Bridge
We made it to Staten Island about an hour before the race started, and found a great parking spot about a half a mile from the start line. Parking near the start always turns into a traffic nightmare when its time to leave resulting in a 1hr+ standstill to get off of the island.
Janis and I pre-race
This race is pretty uneventful, except for the monster hills. There is very little crowd support, so the out and back of this route is very boring. I was taking it pretty easy, and felt good up until mile 7. At that point fatigue, and climbing hills started to kick in. It probably didn’t help that I ran 10 miles the day before either!
Mile splits
I stopped at the aid stations for an extended period of time during miles 9 and 10 because one of my gels spilled in my pouch and everything was sticky included my phone. I had to stop and clean my phone off with water before the stickiness dried. This is the 2nd time this has happened to me. The first time was a couple weeks ago in Atlanta. My buttons were stuck because the gel dried, and I had to chisel them and scrape the crusty gel out to get them moving again, and I didn’t want that to happen again, so stopping it was!
Anywho, the race ends on a hill, and I was completely over it at that point. I mean this was my 2nd race in as many weeks that ended on a hill so I was not a happy camper.
Headed to the finishline, one of my buddies caught this pic.and this one too!
Overall, not my best performance by far, but my best performance that day. This was just another training run for me, so I was just happy to log the miles.
Will I be doing this race again? That is a definite never! Even if I get a free race entry I would pass on this one. I am completely done running in Staten Island!
I completed 5 of 6 races in the 5 boro series this year, here are all the medalsWhy won’t she let me be great!
Next up, I am headed to Detroit for the Free Press International Half marathon, and I am excited!
Until then…
I am participating in the London Marathon on April 28, 2020 on behalf of Team Sense. Please consider donating to help me reach my fundraising goal of €1700, Thank you!
