Running straight through Christmas & into the New Year

Unfortunately, the last two long runs haven't been quite what they should have been to keep me on track in terms of my training schedule for the D.C. Marathon. However, I am hoping that, ultimately, missing a half-mile here and there will not affect the overall outcome. (Running consistently at almost a minute-per-mile slower pace, however, is--alas--almost certainly going to affect the final outcome of the race.)

Here are the routes from my Christmas Eve and post-New-Year's Day runs, respectively:

On Christmas Eve, I ran from my parent's house in Forest Hills to the home of family friends, where my family planned to eat dinner (as we do every year). The worst part of this run, by far, was the section over the Highland Park Bridge. Bridge running in NYC is fine, because in that city, loads of people are expected to walk over the bridges. In Pittsburgh, however, everyone only ever drives over bridges. It was a challenge to even find the footpath on this bridge, never mind run on it after a two-day-long snowfall. I ended up having to give up on running or even walking quickly and nimbly tiptoe my way across simply to avoid breaking my ankles. After that, though, it was smooth sailing . . . if you can consider "smooth sailing" running up an incline the entire rest of the way to the Engs' house.

Today I set out for my 18 mile run. For whatever reason, I actually prefer this distance to 16 miles. Sixteen is one of my two heartbreak distances (the other one being 22 miles). Eighteen and twenty miles I can seem to accomplish without too much agony, but getting past that sixteen mile run is always a huge struggle, and then surmounting the final 22 mile pinnacle of training is always grueling, despite knowing the race will be 4.2 miles longer than even that. Today's eighteen miles was no stroll in the park, however, clocking in at 21°F and a windchill that dropped it down somewhere near 13. My nose was running faster than I was!