My Coach - Allie Kieffer!!

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I still can't believe it but Sunday night I got my first training plan by my coach - Allie Kieffer! It's the first time ever I have a running coach and then a famous one on top of it! Allie finished 5th at the NYC marathon last year and has set PR's ever since. She is one of the favorites racing the NYC marathon this year again. And she is my coach! Thanks Strava!!

She sent me my first week of training and some suggestions. We will see how the first week goes and then talk again to plan the rest of the training cycle.



It still freaks me out every time I get an email from her! It's just so cool!!! :) My first workout was a track workout with mile repeats. And to be honest I was nervous! Having all of a sudden someone telling you what to do, you don't want to disappoint them! So, there is some extra pressure for sure. I don't have access to a track, so I did some loops around a flat part of the neighborhood.



The weather was not ideal: foggy, 74F, humidity 97% and dew point of 73. It was actually a little drizzling as well. The goal was to do 4x 1 mile @ 8:25 with negative splits. My first one was 8:28 and then 8:20, 8:14 and final one 8:06. I was so excited!! I nailed it!! Even though it worries me to fail, it feels so good to actually finish a good workout! What a confidence boost!

Tomorrow I have easy 4 miles and then a midweek long run of 8 miles. My long run will be 15 miles this week. So my weekly total will be 37 miles, which is really high for me. Two weeks ago I ran 30 and last week 27. I hope it's ok to jump to 37.

I'm so worried about injury, especially since my hips are still in a little pain when I'm running. Plus I'm playing around with new shoes since my Asics give me such a hard time on my long runs. Above speed workout I did in Altras Paradigm and it felt good! But so many people warning me about the transition from a stability shoe to the Altra, so that worries me too.

Ahh, why am I such a worrier!! I keep telling myself to BREATHE and just take it one day at a time. All I can do is do my best and see what happens! I'm thinking to start some meditation again, just a few minutes every day. I need to get this nervousness under control. Mental training is oftentimes forgotten during the training. So, somehow I want to improve that, just need to figure out how.

I ordered the book "How bad do you want it?" by Matt Fitzgerald and hope this will help me a little.

... 53 days until the NYC Marathon!!


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