expo fun and st. pat’s

On Wednesday, I – well, RTLR Coaching – was a vendor at a local health and fitness expo.  This was my first vendor gig and I was pretty pumped about it.  It didn’t draw a large crowd – definitely not race expo size – but it was big enough for me to connect with local runners and other local vendors in my area.

Each vendor was provided with a 6’ table and was told to “make it look nice”.  When you’re a running coach, what are you supposed to put on said table?  It’s not like I’m selling merchandise or demonstrating anything.  Instead, I made a nice alternating arrangement of business cards and trifold brochures I created.  It took me a whole 5 minutes to set up my table.

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Let’s talk about the last minute homemade sign.  On Monday night Matt asked me if I had a banner or anything to hang on the table, identifying myself.  Um, no.  Didn’t even think of that.  Ensue frantic shopping trip to Michael’s to stock up on crafty items.  The result is a homemade sign that screams newbie.

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Another lesson learned?  In addition to ordering a banner, get a T-shirt made.  When in doubt, throw on the Boston jacket!

All in all, I got to talk about running for 3 hours, which is always a good night.  Hopefully I got some new clients too!

St. Patty’s Day
One of the best times of the year!  Another reason to drink beer and (college) basketball!

I wasn’t sure how long I was going to run yesterday but in the spirit of SPD, I decided to make it a 17-miler.  Turns out, yesterday morning was the best time to be out and about…drinking green beer.

Because the afternoon was miserable.

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But not too cold for beer.

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It seems the Luck of the Irish was plentiful this weekend at the races!  I’ve seen numerous mentions of PRs on Twitter.  I can’t wait to read the race recaps.

If you raced this weekend, brag about it!  If you didn’t, brag about how much beer you drank or something else. 

I had a strange urge to run a 5K this morning – that never happens – but decided on 9 recovery miles instead. 

Thank you, Runner’s World!

Grab your April issue of Runner’s World and turn to page 40.

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It’s me!

I am so absolutely thrilled to finally see this in print! I answered this question back in June 2012 and have been in contact regularly with the editor about when it would appear. It was definitely worth the wait.

Appearing in Runner’s World – in any capacity – was definitely something on my bucket list.

It almost happened last April during the Boston Marathon. Prior to Boston, RW was looking for so-called “Boston squeakers”, or people who barely got into Boston. I am the very definition of a squeaker – my BQ time was 3:43:46 and the cut-off for my age and gender was 3:43:46. Yep, you don’t squeak by any less than that. I received an email from Tish Hamilton (yes, Tish Hamilton!) asking if I would be available for a photo shoot at the Boston Marathon finish line the day before the race. RW was gathering “Boston squeakers” and was planning on doing a story about them. Umm, YES! Sidenote: if you know me in real life, you know that the prospect of a photo shoot makes me way more happy than it should.

I was literally on the edge of my seat with excitement. Not only was I running my first Boston, I was going to appear in Runner’s World. Does it get any better than that?!

Then the weather forecast got worse and worse (or hotter and hotter) and Tish sent an email saying the angle of the story had changed and instead RW was going to focus on the heat, not the squeakers. Photo shoot cancelled. Total bummer. I missed my shot as a RW model. BUT, I was still running Boston!

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Then came an email from a RW editor in June asking if I would answer a question for their “Ask The Experts” section. Holy crap – this was even better than a photo shoot. I was appearing in RW because of coaching. I never expected this!

Thank you RW. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity and would love (love, love!) to work with you again in the future.

To those of you reading Run The Long Road for the first time – welcome! I hope you like what you see and stick around for awhile.

To those of you interested in coaching, my services are listed here. You can contact me at runthelongroad (at) gmail.com with any questions. Go ahead and check out my PR page to see how “fast” I am – I don’t mind. What I lack in speed I make up for in knowledge Smile

happenings and training

This is the longest stretch I ever went without blogging.  Every time I sat down to write a post over the past 2 weeks, I ended up just deleting it.  Quasi-training doesn’t lead to the most fascinating posts.  Some people can make the mundane sound interesting.  I’m not one of them.

Quasi-training is going really well though.  For right now, it’s just what I need.  I have no interest in racing a marathon this Spring.  Running a 50K or a trail marathon?  Maybe.  But I enjoy being noncommittal at the moment.

I’ve fallen into a pattern with training.  3 weeks of 40-50 miles and then a big drop back week.  That’s good enough to maintain my base until I decide to be committal again.

Wk of 2/4:  40 miles with 13 miles long
Wk of 2/11: 43 miles with 17 miles long
Wk of 2/18: 46 miles with 20 miles long (first 20 of 2013!)
Wk of 2/25: 30 miles with 10 miles long

Besides running, we celebrated a very important birthday.

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clearly…

And I laughed till I cried, drank too much, and chatted until 3AM with these ladies.

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5 of 8 Mains

All is good.