Marathon Training: Friends don’t let friends wear cotton socks

I haven’t blogged much about running the past couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been running.  I had a successful 7-mile long run this weekend, as well as a few shorter 3-mile runs.  Everything has been going well, and I’ve been staying pretty close to my training schedule.
Today, I went out for [...]

Marathon Training: Running in Shorts in January!

When figuring out what to wear for an outdoor run, the common wisdom is to dress as though the temperature were 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) higher than the actual outside temperature. When I set out to run this morning, it was 60 degrees outside. Even though I was in Chicago and it was technically the dead [...]

Marathon Training Day 2: Jeezus it’s Cold Outside

I  skipped running on New Year’s Day, both in anticipation of a hangover I never actually had and because it was extremely cold outside.  Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision, because today was even colder than yesterday.  What was I to do?  I hate cold weather so much!  Surely subzero windchills would freeze the very [...]

Training Day 1: My first experience running in snow

On New Year’s Eve, in the afternoon, I finally mustered up the courage to don my fancy-schmancy winter running gear and attempt to run in the snow. Not a moment too late, as it was the day I needed to start in order to be on schedule for my 18-week training program for the [...]

2008: New Year, New Marathon

As I mentioned in my first posting to this blog, I ran a marathon last year. This marathon was the now-infamous 2007 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon. On the day of the race, a rare October heat wave sent temperatures soaring to 88 degrees; hundreds of people were hospitalized due to heat-related injuries, [...]