Days 5 & 6: A 5K and 5 miles

On Friday I organized a 5k for a group of friends.  We are having a huge group vacation in the Catskills organized by our good friend Adam who does this convention every summer.  It was a really enjoyable experience (for me) and a moderately enjoyable experience (for the participants).  When I measured the route on Thursday I did so by sticking my hand out the window with my GPS on while driving a car.  As a result I could create a route for the participants to loop around 4 times to get to the 5k distance.  When I verified the distance on Friday (by running) I realized that the hill in the route was a bit of a beast to run up ... oops :-)  I made sure to get to 2.4 miles while I ran around the course marking it with crime scene tape, but I didn't actually run the 5k myself.  Instead I was combination cheerleader, race photographer, and timer.  Three people actually did couch to 5k just to run in this super official 5k.  Yay for getting people to run!  Two of those participants didn't quite finish couch to 5k by the time of this race, but were motivated enough to sign up for another 5k with hubby and me on August 22.  I'm really proud of the new runners and also happy that hubby was able to complete the 5k without walking, albeit at a much slower pace than he was running before the Brooklyn Half.

Adam finishes the 5k and crosses through the crime scene tape

Today I ran 5 miles as part of my marathon training.  Running in the Catskills is a completely different beast from running along the waterfront in Queens.  First of all, there aren't parks every mile with functional water fountains and bathroom.  Secondly, there are some really fast cars on the road.  Thirdly, holy crap there are hills in the mountains.  Today's run is definitely getting categorized as a "hill" run in my training log.  I think that it was good for a change and my legs were feeling good throughout the run.  I should definitely incorporate more hills into my workouts while I am in the city so that the three bridges of the NYC marathon don't kill me.

Wildflowers along the road - so pretty :-)

The mountains that I'll be running tomorrow on my first long run of marathon training

On tap for tomorrow: 10 mountainous miles... dun, dun, dun.