Spring or Fall Marathon?

This week I went for two runs in my new sneaks. I ran in the Lehigh Parkway (where my high school cross team practiced), and ran two different circuits. Both days I ran it was bout 85 degrees and sunny...HOT. One run was 3.8 miles and the other was 4.3...both runs that I have done literally hundreds of times in my life, and yet I struggled to complete them without taking breaks for water or to catch my breath.

In HS cross-country, we had to run "tours" of the Parkway, which is a 6.2 mile loop of the park. One of my teammates donated to my Boston Marathon fundraising, and added a note "it's only 4.34 tours!"....which made me feel really pathetic that I couldn't even finish one!


I attribute part of this to the fact that I haven't been running a lot, and partially to the fact that I haven't run in hot weather for 2 years (due to traveling I had no spring/summer since 07), and once the weather got nice in Boston I was recovering from the Marathon and not running. I was laughing while I was running in my sports bra thinking about how "Sports Bra Days" used to be such a big deal in high school, and they were reserved pretty much for >95 degree days. And then I ran past a girl from my high school team...she was wearing a shirt. Whooops.

While I was running this week, I was thinking about how I swore I would never again train for a Spring marathon. It meant running 10 miles through ankle deep snow and practically ice skating half-marathons, which were fun in hindsight, but in not so pleasant in the moment. Then I was thinking about one of my friends who is training for Chicago, and is doing long runs in this summer heat. Also not so pleasant. I guess that no one ever said training for a marathon would be pleasant though!

IT Band update: I pushed my little brother in the pool after he told me he would jump in with me and didn't. He was mad at me then, and jumped on me, crashing his heel right into my injured IT Band. OWwieeee.