Author: theDNF

I’ll skip to the end and say it was a very productive week—my biggest yet since my son was born just about a year ago. After the last few months that I’ve had, that feels great. After the last week in particular, which kicked off with a big snowstorm and rolled right ahead with absolutely freezing conditions, to put up this kind of mileage makes me feel like a maniac.

I wasn’t always this way. In high school and college, I was happy just to show up to practice and do what I was told. I didn’t have many concrete goals—just “get faster,” which puberty mostly accomplished for me—and so I didn’t take much interest in my own training, or the sport at large. Like school, running was something I was pretty good at without having to think too much, and I was happy to let it stay that way.

At the same time, running—like school—had wormed its way into my identity. I took pride in being captain of my high school team, even if I didn’t take enough pride to make sure I actually did a good job at it. So when I barely made the team as a walk-on in college and immediately got hurt, I didn’t question whether I should try to come back. I was so set on running, even without any higher aspirations, even without fully appreciating how tenuous my position on the team was (I got cut as a junior after some of my best performances since high school), that I underwent two surgeries without hesitation.

My priorities were completely out of order, to the point of being non-existent. If you told that kid, even after he went through those surgeries, that he would someday wake up at 4:45 on a Thursday to run 12 miles in single-digit temperatures, and then go to work, he would call you crazy.

But he was crazy. He had no idea why he was doing any of the things he was doing, right down to why he was running in the first place. I’m glad he got those surgeries, because it means I can still run today, but I’m amazed how little he thought about it.

Since then, I’ve immersed myself in the sport, taught myself how to train, and found my why. Just like in high school, I love the pursuit of getting better at something—but I know that now, and I think about it every day, and I can call it what it is. It’s not just a vibe I’m following. I have one last thing to prove, to myself and anyone who cares: that I am good enough to run Boston.

With all that settled, I’d be crazy to stay in bed.

Monday: 7 miles, very easy in the snow as I took stock of the local roads and park paths. Not great, but not bad. My knee held up too, in spite of the poor footing. About four hours of shoveling snow between the morning and evening.

Tuesday: Easy hour on the treadmill with a jog to and from the gym, totaling 9 miles. Getting a membership is already looking like a really smart idea. Missed core because I wasn’t at the office; my son woke up with a fever and had to stay home. Rehab in the evening.

Wednesday: 4 miles at tempo pace (6:00) on the treadmill. 10 miles on the day. Strength at lunch.

Thursday: 12 miles at MLR effort, outside. Absolutely freezing. Struggled with the cold the last few miles.

Friday: Another 9-mile treadmill day. Heart rate reading was really high. Decided I’d consider it a problem if it happened two days in a row.

Saturday: More treadmill, 9 more miles. Heart rate was nice and low. Looks like Friday was a measurement error, or a fluke.

Sunday: 18 miles. Thank goodness I had company; I joined my usual long run crew from miles 6 to 13. Made the decision not to carry water, as it would draw too much heat out of my hands, but I took three gels at miles 5, 10, and 13.

I’m increasing my carb intake for this marathon block by switching to SiS Beta Fuel, which has about twice the sugars of my usual gel. Elite athletes (and sports scientists) are exploring the limits of carbohydrate intake during exercise, with promising results, so I’m following their lead. I’ve been worried about how my stomach will tolerate it, but so far so good—even without water, as I learned today.

I tried to pick up the pace in the last few miles, but my knee hurt a little after 16 miles and I had to back off. It’s frustrating that I’m still not fully healthy, but I’m trying to take these long runs as signs of progress. Last week I made it 14 miles before the pain started, and because of the difference in pace I spent a lot more time running pain-free today. I need to be diligent, but I’m moving in the right direction.

This Week: 74 miles. Thanks to the snowstorm last weekend, I shuffled things around to give myself my highest 7-day total since my son was born, by far. I don’t plan to hit this mileage regularly until later in the block, but this week was a fantastic proof of concept.

Baby: We are pretty sure my son’s first molars are coming in. He has been extremely irritable all week. When he’s not in pain, he’s as happy and playful as ever; he just learned pointing, and he is getting even better at cruising around with support. Unfortunately, he’s in pain a fair amount of the time, and even Motrin can only help so much. We are doing our best to support him as he tries to tough it out. Being a baby is hard.

I didn’t even start writing this post until Tuesday, when it was already late. That’s what happens when an entire family recovering from illness has to host a party and then gets snowed in immediately after. It was quite a week.

Monday: Another day completely off to recover from being so sick on Saturday morning.

Tuesday: One more off day. I can’t remember which days I did rehab in the evening this week, but I know I did rehab at least once or twice. Missing my daily hand-written logs in times like these.

Wednesday: 7 stubborn miles on the treadmill. Strength in the afternoon, but only one circuit. I was definitely still tired from my illness.

Thursday: 10 miles, mostly on the treadmill at 8 miles per hour. This felt pretty good for the circumstances.

Friday: 8 miles, outdoors, at a surprisingly moderate pace. Was scouting locations for my long run, which moved to Saturday to accommodate the snow. Decided on a tried-and-true road loop in Montclair where I’ve done similar workouts before.

Saturday: 15 miles with 2 x 4 miles at marathon pace (6:27 average). This was a tough one, and I couldn’t have done it without my friends. My knee got weak in the last hard mile, which was disappointing but still huge progress compared to where I’ve been.

Sunday: Snow day. Aside from two hours of shoveling, this was a nice relaxing day with my wife and son. Rehab in the evening.

This Week: 40 miles. Not bad at all for a week that started on Wednesday! I’m nearly back where I want to be. If I can keep my knee pain-free, I know I can get there.

Baby: My son is one! I can’t believe it. He’s still so small, and yet he’s gotten so big! It is all a whirlwind of emotions. My wife and I are so happy and proud.

We had our families over for a party ahead of the storm so we could all celebrate together, and it was a lot of fun. He got some wonderful gifts, which he now loves and plays with all the time. He was starting to get the hang of ripping wrapping paper by the end of the day. He tried penne vodka for the first time. He liked it so much he ate it until he puked! That is a glowing review!

My wife also baked him a pumpkin cupcake, because he really likes pumpkin, and he inhaled it! Another five-star review. We were so happy watching him enjoy everything so much. It was so nice to be able to give him a fun birthday.

Most recently, my son has learned pointing, which has been a really interesting window into what he’s thinking. Every day I feel like we connect with him a little more, and it makes me feel like a better dad. Here’s to another year of getting to know each other, and eating our favorite foods until we get sick! From the mouths of babes, such wisdom.

It’s pretty appropriate that this post is late.

As recently as Friday this blog was going to be about recovery, momentum, and forward progress. Today, it’s still about recovery, and still about momentum, but not the kind of momentum that leads to forward progress.

After my PT appointment last week, I settled into a rhythm of nightly rehab exercises as follows:

• 3 x 10 Knee Extensions with Squeeze
• 3 x 10 Single Leg Glute Bridges
• 2 x 10 Clamshells
• 2 x 10 Side-lying Leg Raise
• 3 x 8 Step Down
• 20 Calf Raises
• 4 x 20″ Wall Sits
• 2′ Balance

Even better, I added this to the routine without sacrificing Core on Tuesday or Strength on Wednesday. This was going great. I could run a little farther every day before my knee started to feel weird, and I stopped once it did. By Friday I was cruising six miles uptempo with minimal discomfort.

The problem is that on Thursday, my son was sick with a stomach bug. By Friday night, I was sick with a stomach bug. In the wee hours of Saturday morning, I threw up some blood and got myself to the ER. By the normal hours of Saturday morning, I was home again after an IV bag of saline and two hours of sleep. My wife, after taking care of me before my hospital visit, was working with four. Our son, by this time, had gotten over his stomach bug and was working on an ear infection. He was cranky. We were cranky.

Saturday was very hard for all of us.

Sunday was a little better. After barely eating all day Saturday because I was too queasy, I was finally able to eat a modest amount of bland food. My son’s antibiotics had another day to do their work. Naps were taken. Chores got done. But my 15-miler with 2 x 4 miles at marathon pace did not.

The longer I am unable to fully jump into this marathon block, the more worried I get that I’ll never be able to. When my friend and I were already hurting after a couple weeks of Pfitz’s 18/70 plan, I decided to rewrite the plan to soften things up for us and give us a chance to get to the start line healthy. Now, I can’t even get to the start of the training program healthy.

This blog was supposed to be about rewriting Pfitz’s program. I’m still going to talk about it now, but I feel less smart about it and a lot more desperate.

As the gold standard for dedicated hobbyists like me, Pete Pfitzinger’s plans have a lot of good ideas about training baked in. Unfortunately, those ideas are baked into plans that are trying to squeeze as much quality into as little time as possible. It’s a tightrope walk. One little slip on a snowy day and I lost two weeks of training. As a new dad, I need more margin for error.

For my first marathon back in 2019, I cobbled together a plan based on stuff I found online. That went well enough, right up until I bonked hard around mile 18. For my next one, I picked up a new edition of Daniels’ Running Formula and followed the 2Q plan. I ended up as a DNF there, but it wasn’t the fault of the training—I repeated the plan for a big PR a few months later.

While training with the 2Q plan, I came to a few principles that have worked for me while writing my training since:

• Long runs always count as quality. Trying to squeeze two workouts into a week after even an easy two hours on Sunday never seemed to click for me. This is the bedrock of the 2Q plan: a long run, with or without pace work, and one other workout every week.
• The hour run is undefeated. I read somewhere that fitness gains increase significantly at 30 minutes of exercise, and again at 60 minutes, so at some point around adopting 2Q I also tried to run for at least an hour as many times as possible every week. Whether I got fitter from the magic of 60 minutes or just from consistent higher mileage, it worked, and it stuck.

This basic approach got me to three PRs, 12 minutes in all, over the course of two years. I abandoned it for Pfitz because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing, and because it seems to be working, and because his principles make sense. That said, I think I need to make Pfitz’s principles work for me. Specifically:

• I need more work at marathon pace. Pfitz’s plans prescribe more of these workouts than I usually do, and the workouts themselves are bigger. This is the most specific work in any marathon plan, so it makes sense to do more of it.
• The MLR is a great idea. In past plans, my non-long-run quality day was often the second-longest day of the week. That’s the way it’s drawn up in the 2Q plan. But the MLR is more marathon-specific than, say, 800-meter repeats at 5K pace. So why is my interval day totaling 12 miles? I can spend some of those miles better elsewhere.
• I can’t neglect Strength, Core, or Strides. It may seem silly, but having the simple exercise routines from Advanced Marathoning has made it so much easier to go to the gym twice a week. I’m already seeing improvement. I want to keep this up, along with regular strides and rehab.
• Weekly routine is important. Pfitz’s plans are hyper-optimized to the point that workouts can fall on Tuesday, Friday, or even in place of the usual Wednesday MLR. I don’t like this. It may cost me a few workouts over the course of the training block, but a consistent routine serves my busy life better.

Most of Pfitz’s core principles actually fit into my pseudo-2Q plan pretty well; going forward, I’m going to run my workouts on Wednesday, with the MLR on Thursday. I’m going to keep the marathon-pace workouts and do my best to complete them, though I may soften them a bit—14 miles at marathon pace during peak mileage is almost too daunting to comprehend.

None of this is to say I think I know better than Pete Pfitzinger, who has led countless runners he’s never met to new PRs with his training plans. What I do know is I know myself, and that has been the most important knowledge in writing my training these last several years.

My attempt at 18/70 was off to a really rocky start, and maybe it wasn’t all the plan’s fault, but I have to trust my gut here and figure out the best way forward. We’re doing it my way.

Monday: 4 easy. Rehab in the evening.

Tuesday: 4 easy. Knee felt a little bit better. Core at lunch. Rehab in the evening.

Wednesday: 4 easy. A little better again. Strength at lunch. Rehab.

Thursday: 5 easy. Better still. Skipped rehab after a long day taking care of a sick baby.

Friday: 6 uptempo. Just a little tightness in the knee. My nightmare begins in the evening.

Saturday: Spent the wee hours of the morning in the ER. Terrible day.

Sunday: Utterly depleted. Almost as terrible as Saturday.

This Week: 23 miles. A fine rebuilding week until the rebuild fell apart.

Baby: As you may have gathered from the stomach bug and ear infection, my son had a rough weekend. Fortunately, he has his appetite back now and the antibiotics seem to finally be controlling his ear pain. His fever is gone. My wife and I are hopeful he will be happy and healthy for his first birthday in a few days. Whether we can say the same for ourselves remains to be seen.

If I was on thin ice last week, this week we are seeing cracks start to form. Freezing water is choking through, a quick splash before the cold plunge. Potential energy is creeping toward kinetic energy; potential danger is becoming actual danger.

I finally started skipping runs this week, and I ended up skipping a lot. This is probably because of the one run I chose not to skip—Wednesday morning’s 14-mile medium long run. With the help of a friend, I kept churning mile after mile after my right knee stopped working, ignoring the pain because it was “not that bad.”

When my knee was still hurting walking around the office that day, I knew it was, in fact, that bad. I made an appointment with a physical therapist and got evaluated on Friday night.

The evaluation was inconclusive. It wasn’t my ITB, or any of the other load-bearing ligaments in my knee. That’s good news, in a way, because it means there’s nothing catastrophically wrong, but it’s also bad news because there’s no obvious fix aside from strengthening the area and backing off on my training for a while.

So, with tremendous impatience, that’s what I’m doing. Thanks to my PT, I have a few more exercises in my arsenal:

• Knee extensions with a squeeze ball
• Wall sits

The theory is that I must have slipped just ever-so-slightly while running in the snow a few weeks ago and tweaked my quad (or one of its tendons). I need to strengthen the muscle and wait for the inflammation to resolve. The first part is easy—just do the exercises. The second part is easier said than done.

I’ve been excited lately that my training has seemed to be working, so having to give up that progress feels terrible. Sure, it’s a long way to Jersey City yet (14 weeks), but obviously it’s better to do more training than less, and to get fitter sooner rather than just in time for the race. I feel like I’ve been watching my future finish time tick downwards over the last couple weeks, and now it’s sliding back up again. With how close I’ve been to a BQ in the past, and with how increasingly fierce the competition has become every single year, every second is going to count.

Those seconds still matter to me.

So I’m doing my wall sits and my other exercises and I’m starting my runs with skips and leg swings and I’m foam rolling and stretching and I’m—God forbid—running less. It sucks.

Here’s hoping I have a better update next week.

Monday: Off, completely.

Tuesday: Got horrible sleep and didn’t want to push my luck, so I skipped my run. Core in the afternoon.

Wednesday: Pushed my luck. 14 miles, with pain for the last 8 or 9 and limping for the last 4 or 5. It was nice to see my friend. Rehab exercises in the afternoon.

Thursday: Quad felt weak going down the stairs. No run. Strength in the afternoon, though I maybe should have skipped the lunges, which were uncomfortable.

Friday: Tried to run and realized my knee wasn’t going to make it so I cut it to 1 mile. PT in the evening.

Saturday: 4 miles, and my knee held up until the last half mile. Activation and stretching before, rehab exercises after.

Sunday: Took my son for a stroller run that turned into a nap, so I stretched it to 5 miles. The last mile was a little uncomfortable at parts, but there was no limping. Activation and stretching before, foam rolling and rehab in the evening.

This Week: 24 miles. Next week is likely to take a hit too, but I’m hoping I can be back up by the week after if I take care of myself.

Baby: My son had his first jogging stroller nap on Sunday, which was nice for everyone—including my wife. Before he was born, I thought I’d have done more running with him by now, but most of my runs are too early and too long for him. It’s nice to run with him when I can.

His front teeth have broken through the gums, which has been a huge relief. He is in a better mood most of the time compared to last week. He’s been especially chatty too! The front teeth are extremely important for speech, so maybe we’ll see more verbal milestones now that he’s got the proper hardware. Already he is showing more and more understanding around us; when my wife told him to “say Hi” the other day, he waved! It’s amazing to watch him learn.

There are so many milestones coming up: first words, first steps, and also his first birthday in about two weeks. I can’t believe it’s nearly here already. Looking back at his newborn days, I can’t believe he was ever so small, either. Time stops making sense when you become a parent. It is full of paradoxes and contradictions and mysteries. But it’s worth it, and worth celebrating.

Last week, I had some ominous right leg pain that started on Wednesday and hampered the last few miles of my marathon pace workout on Sunday. The pain continued this week, which puts me on thin ice: I want to follow my plan as-written as much as possible, but I can’t do that if I’m injured.

Starting on Monday, I traded my usual supplementary training for rehab exercises. Better runners than me would say I should have just added them on top, but finding the motivation for extracurriculars is hard enough as it is.

The pain in my right leg is strange. It starts with a dull, diffuse ache in my knee, which limits my range of motion. I have to slow down almost as soon as it kicks in because of how drastically it affects my gait; I don’t have a great knee drive normally, but once the pain starts I’m basically reduced to a limp. I’d think it was IT band syndrome, but I’ve had IT band syndrome before, and it normally stops me dead in my tracks. There is no negotiating with it.

So, do I have a minor injury to my IT band that I can somewhat run through, or is it something else? This is where I’m a bit stuck. For now, I’ve defaulted to doing exercises that support the IT band because they’re the kind of exercises that are good to be doing anyway:

• 3 x 10 clamshells
• 3 x 10 side-lying leg raises (alternating with sets of clamshells)
• 3 x 10 single-leg glute bridges
• 3 x 15 bicycle crunches (alternating with sets of glute bridges)
• 20 squats

I did the clamshells and leg raises on Monday night, then added the other exercises on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Depending on how things go, I may continue to add to the routine, or I may just resume my usual core and strength workouts and do a reduced rehab set on the side.

So far, results are inconclusive, but that’s better than things getting worse. If anything, I might be showing some slow and small improvements, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. It’s important to really pay attention when your body is threatening an injury and avoid giving yourself too much credit. Pride (or even just wishful thinking) will certainly go before a fall.

Monday: Off, as usual.

Tuesday: 10 miles, with a rough second half. This was where I realized the extent of my knee problem and added more rehab exercises.

Wednesday: 13 miles, attempted at MLR effort, but again with a decline in the second half. I felt better in the last two miles, which gave me hope I can avoid the worst of this injury yet.

Thursday: 4 easy after shoveling a light dusting of snow. Road conditions weren’t great, but at least my knee didn’t hurt.

Friday: 10 miles with 4 at tempo pace (6:07 progressing down to 5:56). This felt good. No worries from my knee, but I was suspicious of the treadmill after struggling with a similar workout two weeks ago. Not much I can do but take this at face value.

Saturday: Another 4 easy. I really wanted to slow this down, but I think the cold made me impatient. I felt good, at least.

Sunday: 15 miles, attempted at MLR effort. Slightly overcooked it at first, and then ran into knee problems just after 10 miles. It’s promising that I lasted longer before breaking down, but only if I keep improving. A big effort like this could easily set me back. Time will tell. I thought about doing rehab exercises, but decided to go all-in on recovery instead.

This Week: 56 miles, with about a quarter of that spent limping. That really sucks when you put it that way! I originally intended “Thin Ice” to refer mostly to the weather we’ve been having, with only a nod toward the state of my right leg, but the double meaning is maybe more apt than I thought. I need to be very careful next week.

Baby: My son is still teething. We can see both front teeth have nearly erupted, but the final push to break through is making our boy very uncomfortable. He was especially tricky this weekend.

On the bright side, he is still very active when he’s feeling good and just got some new climbing cushions to horse around on. We’ve also had some success teaching him gestures like clapping, waving, and high fives over the last couple weeks, which is exciting. Up until now, he has been learning mostly through exploration and trial and error. It is nice to feel like we are teaching him things ourselves.

Currently we are working on using a spoon. He is getting the idea, but the results are messy! We have a lot of teaching left to do.

The holidays are always a crazy time, but they’re even more so when it’s your baby’s First Christmas. Even with the week off from work, my wife and I were very busy wrapping gifts and packing our bags for a few days with family. If you’re my wife, you were also busy making some delicious treats for the festivities. If you’re me, you were also busy being a sicko and running 12 miles the morning of Christmas Eve.

When you’re not training for anything, this time of year is the perfect excuse to hang up your running shoes for a few days and unwind, but once you have a race on the calendar it becomes a serious test of your time management skills. It can also quickly become an invitation to push through lots of extra stress on your mind and body, all in the name of “being dedicated.”

Having my wife and son around helped keep things in perspective. After getting my Medium Long Run done the morning of Christmas Eve, spending the whole rest of the day with several iterations of my wife’s extended family, and then driving our sleeping baby home late at night, I felt satisfied that I’d done the right things for myself and my family. I also felt exhausted, and certain that I’d earned an extra rest day despite the miles Pete Pfitzinger had scratched on my calendar.

Christmas Day was completely for family. My wife and son and I had to rally after the busy day before, but we enjoyed each other and our holiday very much.

The discourse around running on Christmas was pleasantly aligned with my own experience this year, and neatly summed up by Runner’s World’s Theo Kahler:

If you’re still debating whether you should run on Christmas, let me change your mind.

Head downtown and enjoy the silence.

It’s the most peaceful run of the year. https://t.co/MPduvAQuEu

— Theo Kahler (@tckahler) December 25, 2025

My apologies that absolutely everything on that site is paywalled and crawling with ads these days. Theo’s thesis, which I was able to gather from screenshots he shared on Twitter, is that running on Christmas is about fun, not fitness. It wasn’t going to be fun for me this year, so I didn’t go. Maybe next year I will, but either way it’s not important unless it comes from the same joy as the holiday itself. You have the whole rest of the week to be a sicko.

And I was a sicko this week! There is no other way to describe running 16 miles on a treadmill in a crowded gym, with no headphones, in the early hours of a Sunday morning. I do not recommend it!

Monday: After the whirlwind of the holidays, I barely even remember Monday, but it was a day off from running.

Tuesday: 9 miles with 6 x 10″ hill sprints and 8 x 100-meter strides. The hill and the track are about a mile apart, so I got some rest in between. It was snowing, which was a bit of a problem for the strides on the track, but I think it may have helped me focus on good form. There’s not a lot of room for error once you start sliding around. Overall, this was good.

Wednesday: 12 miles at MLR effort, which I may have overcooked by averaging just about 7′ pace for the last 7 or 8 miles. My right leg hurt the last couple miles, which really hits home how important it is not to exceed the paces in this plan. I’m doing more quality than I’m used to, so I need to be smart about it.

Thursday: Christmas Eve was very fun, but a long night, and my son did not appreciate the disruption to his schedule. After finally getting everyone to bed at 1 in the morning, I took Christmas Day off.

Friday: This was a really good 9-mile aerobic run. My right leg still hurt, which put a damper on things, but the engine is warming up even if the chassis has a few bolts loose. Pfitz puts a lot of emphasis on spending longish amounts of time at the fast end of easy pace, so it makes sense that that’s where I’m seeing improvements, and it makes sense that that’s where you’d want to improve approaching a marathon. Days like today help me trust the plan.

Saturday: 6, extremely easy. Had to wake up early to shovel myself out for a dentist appointment, then finish shoveling when I got home, so I squeezed this run into the afternoon. I was not in a mood to run, especially on a treadmill, and neither was my body. Glad I got it done.

Sunday: 16 on the treadmill, with 8 at marathon pace (first 2 @ 6:40, next 6 @ 6:35). This was brutal for a few reasons. The most obvious reason is that I was on a treadmill for nearly two hours; another is that I had no entertainment or distraction for most of that time; another is I tried new gels for the first time, which are much higher in carbs than I’m used to and took some effort to digest; another is that my knee had already been bothering me for several days, and flared up again with at least four miles still to go.

It was not fun, but I gutted it out to the end. In a weird way, that’s pretty satisfying. I just hope my next marathon pace workout isn’t anything like this one.

This Week: 52 miles, with serious quality on Sunday and really nice sessions on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. My mileage isn’t as high as I’d like it to be, but I’ve got months until my race and I’m probably getting much better bang for my buck by training this way than running 70 miles at mostly 8′ pace (like I had wanted to earlier this year). Like training on Christmas, mileage numbers are extremely attractive to the ego but only truly serve you when you approach them with a clear head.

Baby: My son had his first Christmas! It was wonderful to spend more quality time with him than usual, with no work and no daycare. He is getting stronger, more energetic, and more clever all the time! And he was a very good boy this year, so Santa (and all our relatives) brought him lots of gifts.

He has also started teething again, and my wife and I think it’s for real this time. He has been much more sensitive this week, with random tantrums and a much stronger need to be held. Normally he has little patience for cuddles and would rather be exploring! It looks like it’s his top teeth coming in now. For all our sakes, we hope they arrive very soon.

I’ve just wrapped up the first week of my 18/70 build towards Jersey City 2026, and I’m feeling good!

That’s a relief. Having never followed a Pfitz plan before, I could see that it makes sense on paper but was worried it would be too difficult for me in practice. Getting a solid first week under my belt—with strong and important efforts on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday—is a needed confidence boost.

The challenge will be continuing to hit those quality days as my mileage piles up. Sleep and proper pacing will be key here. This week I did a good job of prioritizing sleep before and after big workouts and staying controlled the rest of the week. I’ll need more of that over the coming months, but for now it’s just good to have started on the right foot.

Momentum is an important part of any marathon build. Physically, this looks like stacking quality days and weeks without burning out or getting injured. Psychologically, it means showing up every day confident you can execute what’s on the calendar. Nailing workouts is definitionally good for the body, but the mental impact is perhaps even more important. It’s tough to get out of bed for a hard session if you’re feeling anxious or low, no matter how fit you are.

Looking ahead, I’m grateful that the holiday schedule is favorable for running: I have quality days scheduled for tomorrow and the morning of Christmas Eve, with a recovery run on Christmas morning. I can show up to Christmas Eve dinner knowing the hard work for the week is behind me, and enjoy my time with my family.

Sunday (December 14): No run. Slept in after being up late for our annual Christmas party, shoveled us out from about 3 inches of snow, and went out to breakfast with my wife before our son came home from Grandma’s. This weekend was a much-needed time to rest and reset before starting my marathon buildup.

Monday: No run, as scheduled. Signed up for a gym membership so I’d have access to a treadmill for my tempo on Tuesday.

Tuesday: 8 miles with 4 miles at tempo pace (6:05 average). I wanted to push the pace a little more, but my legs didn’t have it so I stayed put. Still a good first workout of the block. Proud of myself for finding a gym and making this work in spite of the snow and my son’s daycare schedule. I also did core exercises at lunch.

Wednesday: 11 at MLR effort, topping out at about 7:20 pace. Felt good.

Thursday: 4 easy. I was surprised by how lopsided the hard and easy days are in this plan, but after Tuesday and Wednesday this was welcome.

Friday: 8 miles. Bounced back well after a nice recovery day.

Saturday: 4 easy. Despite feeling good on Friday, I felt like I needed this before my first long run of the block.

Sunday (December 21): 15 at MLR effort, building up to 6 miles hovering just over and under 7′ pace. The first few miles of this felt pretty bad! But I stuck with it and it turned out OK. Felt pretty good the rest of the day. Success!

This Week: (December 15-21): 50 miles. This went completely according to plan, except that I missed my strength session on Wednesday due to some schedule surprises. This is a great place to start from.

Baby: Having just learned to pull himself up, my son is now obsessed with his new skill and getting better at it all the time. It is a lot of work keeping an eye on him around the house now that he can climb stairs and, with a lot of focus, open cabinets. On Sunday, we took him to see some friends and he got to play with lots of other kids. He has been in a good mood this week and dinners as a family have been especially fun. He loves playing jokes and making my wife and I laugh. We love being his audience!

My 18-week training block for the Jersey City Marathon starts today. According to the 18/70 plan from Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning, today is a rest day. After a rough week at work that was also spent frantically preparing to host a few friends for a Christmas party, I will take it!

It was hard for me to get on board with taking the day off. I didn’t run on Saturday or Sunday either; Saturday I needed every minute to get my house ready for guests to arrive, and Sunday I was sleeping off the party, shoveling snow, and getting the house back to normal for the week ahead. I definitely wasn’t idle! Still, another day without a run feels icky.

That icky feeling is probably anxiety. I don’t feel as prepared for this training block as I thought I would feel when I signed up for the race a few months ago. I wanted to show up having fully regained my 2:52 form from last December; I don’t have the mileage in my legs to confidently say that I have, and I don’t have the race results either. Here’s what I do have:

• A new post-collegiate 5-mile best from June
• A sixty-mile week from October
• An 84:52 half, run conservatively off of illness and injury, from November
• A recent wholehearted adoption of cross-training
• A plan

The way I see it (or that I’m trying to see it) is that I may not be showing up as a race-ready 2:52 guy, but that I may not need to be, either—that’s what the training block is for. An under-trained but experienced runner, with some recent successes and pleasant surprises at shorter distances, who is ready to do the extra work at the margins, is someone you can bet on.

It’s who I’m betting on.

So I’m resting today. I’m trusting my plan and my body and I’m resting. The big work starts tomorrow with a four-mile tempo—probably on the treadmill, after the snow we just had—and some core exercise. I’m ready to show up and see what happens.

Sunday: 12 miles. I tried to run this like another Pfitz MLR but ran out of gas around 8 miles and jogged it in. I wrote on Strava that I needed better sleep and more patience. I’ve been working on sleep again, and as far as patience goes I’m planning to slow down my training paces to start this block.

Pfitz bases all aerobic work from recovery to long runs on marathon pace, which I’ve been assuming is 6:30 because that’s my goal. However, I’m not that guy right now, so I’m going to move the goalposts to 6:40—2:55 pace. That gives just enough wiggle room on my other paces that I think I’ll be able to handle Pfitz’s training better.

Monday: Day off. After bonking on my long run, and knowing that my training plan sets aside Mondays for recovery, I thought this was a good idea.

Tuesday: 7 miles. Did a core routine out of Advanced Marathoning in the afternoon. It went pretty well, except I noticed some imbalances that I’ll have to work to correct over the next few months. This was to be expected seeing as I hadn’t done any core since April!

Wednesday: 8 miles at MLR effort. Not as many miles as I wanted because I ran out of time, but I felt good. I also did some strength work in the afternoon, also out of Advanced Marathoning. I was sore for a few days after this, but in a good way. I need to be doing this more, and I plan to.

Thursday: 7 easy with 30 minutes on the bike at lunch.

Friday: Another 7 easy. I had the day off from work today, so I also did some yardwork that was long overdue. My neighbor has a massive oak tree, and my yard was piled with weeks’ worth of leaves. This was more of a workout than I expected, but I’m glad I got it done.

Saturday: Party prep. No run.

This Week: 41 miles. Not what I expected for this week, but I had a lot of life stuff to work around, and still got some gym work and cross-training in. I’ve been telling myself the last few weeks that this build is not going to be pretty. There are going to be a lot of hurdles in the way. My success will depend on my ability to shuffle out of bed when it’s really early and I’m warm and sleepy, to sneak off to bed when I’d rather stay awake, and to make the training fit when I’m busy with important things. None of this comes naturally to me, but I’m working on it and getting better at it. If I can say the same about my running in a few months, that’s not a bad place to be.

Baby: My son has had a busy week! He spent the night of the Christmas party with Grandma and Grandpa, which was a treat for all of them—not to mention my wife and I! But we missed him, and we were glad to have our chicken home to roost on Sunday. I built a fire and we all sat together and watched it and listened to Christmas music. After a really chaotic week, it was good to slow all the way down and enjoy our first Christmas season as a family of three.

He also learned to pull himself up, which meant I was racing to lower his crib before bed on Sunday night! It has been incredible to watch him take to another new skill so quickly over the last day or so, after trying and trying without any luck for the last month or more. He’s been growing up just like that John Green quote: slowly, and then all at once, over and over again.

My training block for the 2026 Jersey City Marathon is starting soon, and I just finished reading the relevant chapters of Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning to get ready. I think I will be following the 18/70 plan. If everything had gone perfectly this year, I would have loved to push for the 18/85, but I had too many setbacks to make that realistic.

As it stands, I am not even certain the 18/70 is realistic. After trying a “medium long run” this week, I’m starting to worry about the intensity of Pfitzinger’s training plans. I was able to handle a MLR on Thursday, but the recovery from it was hard; I ended up taking Saturday off this week and still came apart on my long run the next day. Marathon training was already going to be a balancing act as a new dad. Choosing the wrong plan could make it even harder.

I have to be certain that Pfitz, well, fits.

I’m fortunate to have a sort of built-in “trial period” owing to the plan’s 18-week duration. I usually schedule a 16-week block, for no reason other than that’s how long I trained for my first marathon, so I can always pivot to something I’m more comfortable with if Pfitz absolutely destroys me over the first two weeks. I’ll commit to following the plan as written to start, and reassess then.

I want to be able to follow the 18/70 plan to the end because the ideas behind it make a lot of sense: your long run and medium long run are the most important days of the week, with tempo days next in importance and hills and intervals as gravy. It’s easy to recover from a tempo run, so the MLR is done the very next day to stack important work and leave more time to freshen up for the long run.

The long runs are hard as hell, though, building up to 14 miles at goal marathon pace within a 20-mile run. It’s tough to get three quality days done in a week, but what happens when one of your quality days is that? My goodness.

In theory, if done properly, the plan will have me ready just in time for each big workout as it comes. In practice, a lot of runners can attest that this is true. But in my experience, I have no experience with this plan whatsoever. More than ever before, we will have to see what happens.

Sunday: 4 easy with my “long run” group. Didn’t have much more in the legs after my race the day before. Nice to get out there and be social before getting back to the workweek.

Monday: 4 very easy, plus 30 minutes on the bike at lunch.

Tuesday: 7 easy. Found a “Your Speed” sign that was sensitive enough to report my running speed. This is the dream.

Wednesday: 7 easy. Sleep was a problem this week and I started to feel it here. I sprinted past that speed sign today, but a car was going by at the same time just like in that scene from The Office. Bike at lunch.

Thursday: 10, in an attempt at a Pfitzinger-style “medium long run.” I ran the last 6 at sub-7-minute pace and felt pretty good. Was tired afterward, though.

Friday: 5 very easy. Realized today I wasn’t sleeping enough to recover from the half plus Thursday’s uptempo effort.

Saturday: Realized today I just didn’t want to run, so I didn’t. That’s when I know I’m too tired.

This Week: 37 miles. I need to be doing more than this, even considering my recovery needs after the half. I just didn’t sleep enough to give this my best shot. I will be thinking about this headed into next week, and soon into the start of my training block.

Baby: My son was home sick today after a brief fever on Sunday. His mom gamely stayed home to watch him so I could go to work and stay on top of some deadlines coming up. He hates naps, so this was not a super fun assignment, but they made the most of it. They both were in good spirits when I got home with a rotisserie chicken for dinner.

We brought him along to pick out our Christmas tree this weekend, and now it is fully (and beautifully) decorated. It hasn’t quite taken over his imagination yet, but we know it will; the puppy gates should be here tomorrow.

The week of Thanksgiving is a busy and important time for all of us, but it is especially so for runners. Thanks to the popularity of turkey trots, Thanksgiving is the only holiday where you can wake up early to go for a run, and people treat you like you’re only a little crazy.

Thanksgiving is also one of the rare times when nearly every runner in town will be at the same race, and that race is also likely one of a small handful you might run every single year. The competition—against the field, and against your many younger selves—is fierce. The weather is… well, at least you can bet it won’t be too hot. What’s not to love about a turkey trot?

For many years, my Thanksgiving race was the Rockland Road Runners Turkey Trot in Congers, NY. My grandma lived in nearby New City and hosted Thanksgiving dinner every year, so most years I would stay overnight, run the trot, and come back to help set up for the holiday. By chance, my high school and college team captains were both regulars at the race too, which meant I always had a friendly face to turn to in the thousands-strong crowd.

From 2010 until 2018, I ran the trot six times. Looking back at my results now, a lot of things stand out to me.

Sitting here ten years on, I suddenly remember my college captain texting me when I missed 2012. It was my senior year; I had been cut from the team the previous winter and I hadn’t run since. I showed up for 2013.

I don’t even remember running my course best in 2010, but I sure as hell remember falling a few seconds short of it in frigid conditions in 2018. A lot changed in those eight years. I tucked into bed one Thanksgiving night as a kid going through the motions, and woke up another Thanksgiving morning as a working adult with the goal to run a marathon someday. I’m much more proud of 2018.

I won an age group medal in 2018, and so did my college captain. He left before the medals were handed out, so I held onto his. Despite a few attempts to log some miles together over the years, I still haven’t gotten it to him. I think about it every Thanksgiving.

I also think about my grandma. I stopped running that turkey trot after 2018 because that was the year she passed away.

My grandma was a lifelong athlete. I have some track medals from her school days tucked away somewhere, but I didn’t know about them until she passed. What I remember was how she joined us for a ski trip every year, well into her seventies and well into her cancer diagnosis. It’s maybe more accurate to say we joined her; she regularly skied 30 or more days a year.

She played tennis too, and swam laps to stay in shape for ski season. At 69, she completed her first triathlon. She became the kind of athlete who won her age group just by showing up.

My grandma was really good at showing up: ski trips, birthdays, graduations, a random summer trip to the Ben & Jerry’s factory, and more than her fair share of high school track meets. She was always there, always interested in us, always listening, always kind.

She spent three years dying of cancer and lived every minute of them. She made amazing stuffing every Thanksgiving. She was one of the most incredible people I will likely ever know.

Because of my grandma, and my friends, those turkey trots will always live close to my heart in a way few other races can. People (myself included) talk about Boston and other big races like the high holy days of the running calendar, but there may be no more sacred day for runners than Thanksgiving—our day to shine, our day to share, our day to sweat and suffer and smile, together.

For the first time since 2018, I ran a race over Thanksgiving weekend. Time will tell whether this is a new tradition, but right now I am so, so thankful for it.

Sunday: Needed a day off after a big comeback week last week.

Monday: 7, a little quicker than my usual easy day but I felt good. Took a detour from my usual route which was nice.

Tuesday: 4 easy. My low iron worries were starting to get to me today, and my run suffered a little for it. Bike at lunch was also a little off.

Wednesday: 4 easy, and much better.

Thursday: Took Thanksgiving off. It’s a little tricky to run on the years we’re with my in-laws because of all the travel, and with the baby in the picture now I figured I would save the hassle. Next year we’ll be more local, so I’m hoping to get back to a proper trot in 2026.

Friday: 3-mile shake-out for the NCR Half. Jogged to Falls Road Running Store to pick up my bib, and was a little thrown off by how downhill it was to get there. This turned out to be good mental preparation for Saturday, even if it might have been a little more physically costly than I wanted the day before a race.

Saturday: I ran the NCR Half Marathon in 84:52, good for eleventh place and first in my age group. This is technically a half marathon PR for me, though I probably ran about the same or slightly faster in some stretch of the 2024 Jersey City Marathon. That’s a slightly unfair comparison, so all things considered I’m still very happy with the race.

As I wrote last week, I had no idea what to expect, so I set a lot of really loose goals and told myself I’d see what happened. Having my brother-in-law, who was also running the half, there with me helped keep the mood light.

The race started with over 100 feet of elevation loss in the first mile, which was a shock to the system. As everyone’s paces started to settle down on flat ground, I found myself a group and tucked in. We hit the second mile in about 6:40, which was faster than I thought I’d be going, but I felt fine.

The great thing about longer races is you can talk to people. Here, I met Connor, who was planning to make a push at mile 3 or so. I figured the worst that could happen was I might eventually have to back off, so I went with him. We spent the next few miles chatting it up at 6:30 pace. So far so good!

Connor was a great running buddy, but eventually we realized I was feeling better than him and he encouraged me to push ahead. As soon as I did, I felt how different it was to be running that fast alone. While we were running together, I was shouting support for other runners as we passed them coming back from the turnaround. Once I was alone, I shut the hell up. I needed to focus.

Fortunately, I had something to focus on; there was a runner just a little ahead of me, and I was gaining. Suddenly I was ticking down toward 6:20 pace. It was getting harder now, but I still felt good. By mile 10 I pulled even.

I spent the next three miles trying to run away from this guy, but he stuck to me like glue. In the quiet of the woods I could hear every footstep. At times it was all I could hear. I kept pushing.

With a quarter mile to go, those footsteps crept up alongside me and darted off into the distance. I didn’t let it dampen my spirits, and kicked home to the finish. My wife was waiting for me.

I waited at the finish to congratulate Connor, who ran a huge PR himself, and some of the other runners I met on the course, and then my brother-in-law. The atmosphere at the finish line was perfect: crisp and clear and cozy, a pleasant merry buzz in the air. Everyone was friendly and having a good time. Cheesesteaks were waiting for our crew at home.

There really is nothing like a turkey trot.

This Week: 31 miles and a solid half marathon! If I can run two of those by April, I’ll get the 2:49 I’ve been after since Rehoboth. I’m currently reading Advanced Marathoning and looking forward to the work.

Baby: My son had his first Thanksgiving, and it did not disappoint. Dinner was a huge hit—he had turkey, stuffing, applesauce, and sweet potato, but mashed potatoes were his favorite! Our family had a lot of fun doting over him, and he was happy to be doted upon. On Saturday, he had a great time with his grandma while my wife and I were at the race.

I know how special this is.