not many hours to the start now. just light jogging with uli and simone this morning in central park. met eugene aswell after the run. he is over with a travel group from ireland. the international friendship run was on so thousands of runners were in the park – just crazy.

the rest of the day is just about eating, drinking and sleeping. cant wait now for the start – bring it on.

alarm bell will ring at 5am. then i catch the CPTC bus to staten island.

dry and warm-ish conditions is the prediction by the usual weather forecast sites.

tune of the day – Bob Marley – Three Little Birds

and yeah, it’s all about visualizing 😉

for my local (german) newspaper, Heilbronner Stimme, i was writing the following article on the race.

the weather is still nice and dry. the weather forecasts for sunday are a bit mixed up. it wont rain for the start – thats good!

went again to “Tavern on the Green” for the Press Conference with Cheriyout, Ramaala, Kwambai, Makau… Good fun again (pics HERE). I also met a idol of my youth – Pat LaFontaine. NHL Superstar. A very nice guy. was chating to him about german icehockey and german NHL players – good talk. He is running the marathon aswell to raise money for some charity.

evening saw an easy run around central park. the place is so jammed. unbelievable. running for hours around the place and just looking at the crowd would be no problem these days. so funny. but eventually it is “only” taper time. tomorrow we’ll take it extremelly easy to tune up the legs for “super sunday”

Good night.

tune of the day – A Flock of Seagulls – Telecommunication

THURSDAY:

Manhattan is on fire. raceday is getting closer and the park is jaming these days. beautiful weather. the rain is gone.

Uli and i ran easy 50 minutes in the morning before we went down to the famous “Tavern on the Green” Restaurant in Central Park to enjoy the first big press conference. “Americas Finest” was the title and the 6 best US guys showed up. Interesting press conference and nice to talk to some of the guys.

cycled down to the EXPO afterwards and got the race number thingy sorted before the big boom hits the town tomorrow and saturday. extremly busy around all the stands around the place. we didnt really enjoyed it and went for a coffee in the sun along the hudson.

tough day in the office.

Back in NYC – Yeah!

like the last three trans atlantic flights i was lucky to get a brilliant seat up front. huge legspace! i slept 60% of the flight and as i did all my immigration procedure at dublin airport i didnt had to wait at JFK airport immigration (the whole thing to me ages the last time coming in from frankfurt…) and was in manhattan in minutes – easy travelling.

it really felt a bit strange when i went for a shakeout run with uli in central park just shortly after i arrived. The travel was so fast and smooth. Really didnt get the usual travel excitement. Good though!

So happy to be back. Feels a bit like “groundhog day” alright, a wet day though. it is raining like mad and forecast doesnt look good for sunday either. Lets hope for the best. You cant change it anyway.

this morning central park was surprisingly empty. the americans dont like running in the rain. very little crowd in central park despite race week. we ran our last faster session.

tune of the day – Jay-Z feat Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind

less days to 5 borough raceday – less mileage. i cant wait to fly over to new york now…

the week flew by. two tempo sessions that went well and gave me the rest of motivation for the big apple showdown. besides that it was only easy jogging and a crucial long-ish run with “sumo – simo” on sunday morning.

we had brilliant weather. the sun was shining and made the run along the irishtown beach beautiful. the wind was heavy, very heavy. and on the way back we got brutal head winds which made a 100 minutes run a 200 minutes run, feeling wise.

from saturday to monday i was working around the dublin city marathon. it was a nice experience and really good fun to see all the friendly faces racing and to be on the “other side” of a race.

Recap WK43
Total 73k with 6 runs in 7 day
2 weeks to New York City

Monday – Easy – 7k
Tuesday – Rest Day (watched Shamrock Rovers playing Cork City)
Wednesday – Tempo Run – 14k
Thursday – Easy – 11k
Friday – Tempo Run – 12k
Saturday – Easy – 11k
Sunday – Long Easy – 18k

Everything is so New York City these days. The worlds biggest marathon pulls all the attention towards the big apple.

mzungo.org has a special about the race and everything that´s gonna happen around it. check it out!

At 13.1 miles, runners cross the Pulaski Bridge, marking the halfway point of the race and the entrance into Queens. After about two and a half miles in Queens, runners cross the East River on the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. It is at this point in the race when many runners begin to tire, as the climb up the bridge is considered one of the most difficult points in the marathon.

The Queensboro Bridge is a double cantilever bridge, as it has two cantilever spans, one over the channel on each side of Roosevelt Island. The bridge does not have suspended spans, so the cantilever arm from each side reaches to the mid-point of the span.

The bridge has two levels. Originally the top level contained two pedestrian walks and two elevated railway tracks (as a spur from the IRT Second Avenue Elevated Line) and the lower deck four motor traffic lanes, and what is now the “outer roadway” and pedestrian walk were two trolley lanes. A trolley connected passengers from Queens and Manhattan to a stop in the middle of the bridge, where passengers could take an elevator or the stairs down to the island. The trolley operated from the bridge’s opening until April 7, 1957. The railway was removed in the late 1930s and early 1940s as well as the 2nd Avenue Elevated Line. The trolley lanes and mid-bridge station, as well as the stairs, were removed in the 1950s, and for the next few decades the bridge carried 11 lanes of automobile.

source: WIKIPEDIA

Its not only me who has some fears before a big race. even ryan hall is afraid…

The training-weeks are flying by. From today on its just 14 days to race day.

The weekly mileage dropped again. I took a spontaneous rest day on Wednesday as i was feeling tired and had no intension to go out running in the rain. A main focus these days is to stay healthy. I try to get as much sleep in as i can (Averaged roughly 8.5h a night this week), get good food in and wash the hands a bit more then i usually do. The last thing i want these days is a cold or the flu.

Training went OK. This week saw three faster sessions. Tuesday Night i headed to Newbridge to get a couple of 800m intervals on the grass track (see picture). On Thursday i stayed local for a Marathon Pace run. I started off with 20 minutes at Marathon Pace and worked my speed down to half marathon pace.

The long and hard session was, as always, on sunday. Phoenix Park is just a brilliant training spot so i ran my 80 minutes Marathon Pace workout around there. Despite the stomach problem at the end the session went OK.

I continue to decrease the weekly mileage to safe the legs for the bridges.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Hunter S. Thompson

Recap WK42
Total 88k with 6 runs in 7 day
3 weeks to New York City

Monday – Easy – 7k
Tuesday – Interval’s (Newbridge Track) – 12k
Wednesday – Rest Day
Thursday – Tempo Run – 16k
Friday – Moderate – 10k
Saturday – Moderate – 15k
Sunday – Tempo – 28k