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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.

I am running again! As I wrote last time, it’s amazing what a difference it makes to be exercising regularly again. The difference is even clearer when I can finally resume my exercise of choice. I am feeling even closer to my old self.

That said, I kept up some light biking this week, as promised. I really want to keep up this habit through my upcoming marathon block. I’ve done my last few blocks on a similar template, and it feels like time to shake things up.

To that end, I’m also ordering a copy of Pete Pfitzinger’s Advanced Marathoning. I’ve been a Daniels follower since I got back into running after college, but I’ve heard plenty about others’ successes with “Pfitz” programs and I’m curious. I’ll be hitting the books these next couple weeks to put a plan together before training officially starts.

In other news, I got a call from the doctor with results from the blood tests I took at my sick visit last month. My iron is seriously low!

The confusing and frustrating thing is I feel fine. Iron deficiency has a reputation for causing extreme fatigue, like stuck-in-bed fatigue. I finished a 60-mile week right before I took that blood test, and I did that on top of all my other responsibilities as a husband, father, and employee. My energy levels leave a lot to be desired in the absolute sense, but for someone in my position I think I’m doing pretty well!

I have a referral to a hematologist, and I’m trying not to worry in the meantime about how little sense this makes to me. Low iron affects a small but meaningful percentage of endurance athletes, and treatment is easy and effective. I am hoping that I could even feel like a whole new man after a transfusion next month, but I’m also hoping that low iron is all I’m dealing with. Doctor Google has been a poor consult.

In light of my results, I’m thinking even harder about how to approach my half marathon this weekend. I already knew a while ago that I wouldn’t be racing it up to my usual standards, but now I need to manage the fact that my blood is an ongoing question mark. My iron was low a month ago, and my previous blood test was at least five years ago, so I have no idea what my results might look like today. Is my hemoglobin still normal? Or am I about to hit a wall like none I’ve ever felt before when I run this half?

My plan is to be very conservative this week and at the race. If I can turn it into a decent progression long run, that would be a win. After that, I’ll keep running and biking easy until my appointment with the hematologist. I think I’ll be getting an iron transfusion then which should put a lot of worries to bed.

If all goes well, that will be just in time for my marathon block to start.

Sunday: 5 miles. Felt rusty, with little aches and pains and plenty of awkwardness. The first run back is always a little weird.

Monday: 6 miles in the morning, which still felt awkward. 30 minutes easy on the bike at lunch.

Tuesday: 7 miles, still feeling bad. Knew right then I’d be cutting back on Wednesday. 30 minutes on the bike at lunch.

Wednesday: 4 very easy. Felt a cold coming on. 30 on the bike.

Thursday: 7 miles and finally feeling a bit better. Bike.

Friday: 7 again, tired.

Saturday: 5 with a friend on the local Turkey Trot course. The Ashenfelter 8K is a very well-loved (and competitive) race, but I still haven’t run it even after living in the area for the last ten years. I’m traveling for Thanksgiving this year, so maybe in 2026 I’ll finally get my mug.

This Week: 41 miles, plus two hours on the bike. Not bad for my first full week of running in over a month! Hitting the bike last week definitely set me up well here. Let that be a lesson to me about the power of cross-training!

Baby: My son is ten months old today! He is happy and healthy and so much fun, except when he is teething. He has been extremely cranky the past couple days, especially for him, so I’m hoping we have some new chompers to show for it soon. We are eagerly looking forward to his first Thanksgiving and, soon after, his first Christmas! It’s going to be a lot of fun sharing this special time of year with our special-est little boy.

After several weeks of downer blogs with little to report, I am finally starting to mount a comeback.

Last week’s resolution to hit the bike has already paid off handsomely. I can’t actually say yet how much difference it’s made in maintaining my fitness, but the intangibles alone have been worth it. It feels great to start your day by breaking a sweat. It’s even better when you can add to the physical work with some mental gymnastics, courtesy of Connections and Revealed and cryptograms and sudoku. After my time on the bike, I was more focused at work and home. I felt more in control of my day.

For the first time in about a month, I feel in control of my training again. I took another test run on Saturday, and while I could still feel some pain in my rib, it was very faint. I tried a more substantial run on Sunday with similar results, so I think I’m just about ready to go.

My plan is to ramp up my mileage over the next few weeks while keeping my biking regimen intact. I think cross-training will be really important as I approach higher mileage, making my peak weeks even bigger while adding low-risk volume to my recovery weeks. It adds a new way I can mix up the recipe and avoid getting overcooked or stale. I could even swap biking for PT exercises during recovery weeks to reinforce my body for the next upswing. As long as that workout time is already on the schedule, there are loads of possibilities.

I’m starting to feel excited about running again. In that sense, this month of illness and injury might have been a blessing in disguise, or at least it might have a silver lining. I’m fresh and motivated and about to start a marathon block. Maybe it would be better to be a little more fit right now, but that’s still a pretty good place to be.

After about two weeks of pain in my ribs (and no cold symptoms), I went back to the doctor to see why I’m still so sore. As it turns out, I sprained a rib during my illness. This will likely take at least another two weeks to feel better, and there isn’t much I can do about it. This was not welcome news.

Rather than worry over how little I can do for myself, I’ve been trying to take heart in the things I can avoid doing now that I know what’s going on. For two weeks I was massaging the area and stretching it out, like you would for a sore muscle, but this was probably making my pain worse. Since I stopped doing all that—and started a prescription-strength anti-inflammatory regimen—I’ve been feeling much better. The hardest lesson for an athlete to learn is that sometimes it’s better to do less.

I didn’t run this week. It’s hard to do much less than that. It’s hard to do, period. I’ve been missing the lighter mornings now that Daylight Savings Time has ended. I’ve been missing the fall weather and foliage. One of my workout buddies heard great horned owls at the park, and I missed that too. Instead I’ve been grunting and groaning through ordinary tasks and watching my Garmin race predictions tick dispiritingly upward. I’ve been feeling simultaneously restless and exhausted.

I thought about running on Saturday because I was feeling pretty good that day, but opted instead to catch up on some light yard work. Even blowing the leaves left me a little more sore than I’d like. Just trying to keep our house in order feels like it’s setting me back. How am I supposed to start running again? Seriously, can anyone spare a rib?

Out of desperation, I forced myself to run on Sunday and quickly regretted it. Breathing didn’t hurt, but I could feel a tug on my ribs with every step. The ligaments I injured are not ready for impact yet. I stopped after a mile and considered my options.

For a while I’ve been hoping that I was never more than a few days from getting back out on the roads. Now, I’ve barely run in the last month. I need to exercise. It is time for something different.

Today I went into the office specifically to use the gym on my lunch break. I rode an exercise bike for the first time since 2010, when I was a clueless college freshman battling chronic compartment syndrome flare-ups and ultimately recovering from surgery. I rode for an hour and focused on keeping my heart rate on the easy side of my usual running zones. I broke a sweat. It felt great. I’ll be back again tomorrow.

The most important moments in my training over the last several years, as I’ve been trying in earnest to qualify for Boston, have been the ones where I finally made a pivot. Things eventually stop working, and when that happens you need to stop and strategize instead of putting your head down and pushing through—because eventually that stops working too.

The best thing that happens in times like these is you add something new that makes the sum of your efforts greater than it was before. In the past, physical therapy was the whole-body rebuild I needed to finally approach higher mileage. Going to therapy (the other kind) helped me find an emotional balance that restored function and order to my daily routines. Maybe some extra time on the bike has secretly been the key to building volume in my busy new-dad life. Maybe my office gym is Free Real Estate.

Maybe that’s just the beginning.