Run, Karla, Run!

Melanie Jones in 'Endure.' Photo courtesy of 'Endure.'

Since the massive success of British theater troupe PunchDrunk’s “Sleep No More”—a meandering mash-up of “Macbeth” and ‘30s film-noir—immersive theater has taken New York City by storm. With audience members set loose in a space, free to roam and interact with the actors at will, it makes sense that someone would think to adapt this theater form to a show about running.

Melanie Jones, a Canadian playwright, actress and dancer, has done just that. Freed from the confines of a traditional theater, “Endure: A Run Woman Show” poses the question, “What if the race of your life is your life?” Well then, you better wear your running shoes. Read the rest of this entry →

I’m not usually one to plug products or programs unless I’ve tried them myself, but my good friend and coach, Kevin Horty, is running a spring marathon and half-marathon training program with Terrier Tri in New York City. And while I can’t endorse Terrier Tri, I heartily endorse Coach Kevin. He’s the man with the plan who has seen me through over two dozen PR’s, including three consecutive marathon PR’s. As coach of the New York Harriers, he’s helped hundreds of other runners get faster too. And his marathon best of 2:41 ain’t too shabby.

The 14-week program begins on January 10, and includes three weekly group coached sessions in Central Park on Tuesday/Friday at 6 a.m. and Sunday at 8:30 a.m. Sessions include speed work, fartlek runs, hill workouts, tempo runs and fast finish long runs. The program also includes a weekly training schedule with five days per week of running and strength and core workouts, as well as online email support from Coach Horty and Coach Spencer Casey, head coach of the New York Athletic Club elite running team. Between them, these guys have 45 years of competitive running and coaching experience. The cost is $350 for Terrier Tri members and $395 for non-members. Check out the website for more information on the Bostonplus program.

And to everyone training for a spring marathon or half-marathon, start your engines!

Photo by Christy Hourihan

The 2010 ING New York City Marathon is now another notch on my hydration belt. After months of agonizing, planning, plotting, scheming and dreaming, I ran the best race I could.

I sang. I ran. I conquered.

Sunday, Nov. 7 was that rare day of days when, Murphy’s law be darned, everything went right. Not only was it my fastest marathon to date, but it was also the most fun. I wasn’t just running; I was singing at the start of the wheelchair and professional women’s races. Read the rest of this entry →

Karla Bruning will sing "American the Beautiful" at the start of the 2010 ING New York City Marathon. Photos by Phil Hospod.

After four months of training, five races, four physical therapy appointments, one x-ray and one MRI, it’s finally here: the ING New York City Marathon. Tomorrow I’ll toe the starting line on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge with 45,000 other runners.

But I’m not only running; I’m singing too. New York Road Runners has asked me to kick off the wheelchair and professional women’s races with “America the Beautiful.”

It’s an honor for a singer to be asked to perform at any major sporting event like the New York City Marathon, but as a singer who also happens to be a marathon runner, it’s like having your cake and eating it too. Singing for athletes who are able to accomplish what most of us only dream is humbling and a privilege. I’m already anticipating getting shivers, and not from the cold. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo by Phil W. Shirley

12 weeks down, 4 to go.

The ancient Greeks gave us a lot: the Hippocratic oath, democracy, the Olympics, and, of course, marathons. Race organizers around the world are celebrating the 2500th anniversary of the battle of Marathon this year (never mind the fact that it should be 2011).

But the ancient Greeks also gave us something else: the journey to hell and back. Reading Greek mythology, it seems like people were always trekking to the underworld for one reason or another; Odysseus, Hercules and, most famously, Orpheus all made the trip.

The joke that the distance to hell and back is 26.2 miles is apt. And like Orpheus ascending from the underworld, there’s no looking back.

The road to the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7 hasn’t been much different, marked by highs, lows, good news and bad news. The agony and the ecstasy are part of the journey. And my last two weeks of training have been filled with agony and ecstasy. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo by fotologic/Flikr

10 weeks down, six to go.

Believe. It’s a loaded word. One that is used and abused in popular culture, in religion, in politics, in all the areas of life where what we want to be true may not always be, and what is true is not always pretty. As humans, we have a unique ability to delude ourselves. And yet, we continue to believe any number of things for any number of reasons, some of which are worth believing.

Running isn’t any different. Every runner has a different set of beliefs: that stretching is good or bad, that running with headphones is helpful or a hindrance, that tackling an ultramarathon is sane or insane, that we’ll actually be able to achieve our running goals.

I began to question my beliefs during my last week of training for the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo by Christy Hourihan

Nine weeks down, seven to go.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Training for a marathon is like riding a roller coaster. After the high of scoring a personal record at the OASIS Montreal Half-Marathon, I was due for a little deflation. You can’t sit on top of the roller coaster forever. At some point, it’s going to roll down.

And roll down it did. The last two weeks of training for the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7 have been full of shenanigans that forced many a change of plans. In the process, I learned the power of saying yes and no. Read the rest of this entry →

Rhys Jenkins, Scott Jenkins and Rusty Tolliver aren’t professional athletes. But that’s not stopping them. The three friends have set out on a potentially world-record breaking run from Boston to Austin. Over the course of 2000 miles and 75 days, they’ll run at least a marathon a day while raising money for charity.

They departed on Sept. 15 from McGreevy’s Bar on Boylston Street in Boston and will run through New York City, across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas to Austin, Tex., covering 26 to 40 miles per day.

All three are planning on running at all times, barring any injury, and aim to average about five miles per hour.

“We’ll all be running and suffering together,” Scott Jenkins, 29, said.

“Every step of the way,” Rhys Jenkins, 22, added. “With a lot of trial and error and exhaustion.” Read the rest of this entry →

Running a tune-up race is a great way to prep for a marathon. Photo by Sergis blog.

Seven weeks down, nine to go.

Training for a marathon is long process. Much like my training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7, most runners spend at least 16 weeks, or the better part of four months, agonizing over every detail—longs runs, speed workouts, tempo runs, strength training, cross training, stretching, nutrition, sleep, avoiding injuries, avoiding illness, you name it, all for a few hours of agonizing glory. As the old U.S. Marine Corps adage goes—which my boyfriend and fellow marathoner-in-crime loves to quote—“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

While all that weakness is busy leaving our bodies, we’re hoping that what we’re doing actually works. That come race day, we’ll be in our best shape to conquer 26.2 miles. All that pain better mean some gain.

But how do you know if your training is serving you well? There’s nothing like a big tune-up race to check in with your training. Running a race before your big marathon gives you an intermediary goal to work toward, and will let you know if your training is working, what marathon goals you should be targeting and what potential race-day problems might pop up. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo by Marzanna Syncerz © PhotoXpress.com

BRISTOL, R.I. — Six weeks down, 10 to go.

Today’s column is brought to you by the letter ‘P’ and the letter ‘R.’

I earned a pair of them on Sunday. It was a fantastic week of training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7; a week that reminded me what it feels like to be a kid on summer vacation, and made me grateful for all the running I’ve enjoyed.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love vacation. Who doesn’t? I love to travel and explore—as I child I used to pretend I was like Bert and Ernie searching the vast African jungle for Dr. Livingstone.

But my vacation this week felt a bit more like summer vacations of yore—running around the neighborhood, buying ice cream, hitting the pool, watching movies at night, and generally killing time in the most pleasing ways imaginable; basically, by doing a whole lot of nothing.

But remember what the end of summer felt like as a kid? A new school year is quickly approaching, and you know you have to make every single day count. You’ve got to run and play and swim hard. Because before you know it, you’ll be sitting in a stiflingly hot classroom staring out the window at a sunny patch of grass, remembering better times. And I was a kid who actually liked school. But I still liked unfettered summertime better.

Running a race in Rhode Island reminded me of those old summertime days. It was in fact a sunny day that swept all the clouds away. The air was sweet, the sky was an unbroken streak of blue, and not even a temperature of 80 degrees could slow me down. Read the rest of this entry →

The Montreal Half-Marathon starts with a 5.5 mile uphill climb. Photo of Montreal by Christine Scholes.

Five weeks down, 11 to go…

With another solid, feel-good week of training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon under my belt, I’ve decided to look forward to the week ahead. Namely, I’m looking forward to my big pre-marathon litmus test—the OASIS Montreal Half-Marathon on Sept. 5.

It’s going to be an uphill battle—literally. When I looked at the elevation chart, I gulped. How could I possibly prepare for this race when uphill climbs are my Kryptonite, my public enemy number one, my Newman? Read the rest of this entry →

Check out The Marathon Show for an interview with Karla. She talks about the running status of many elite marathoners, how to be a successful blogger, her coverage of the Olympics and much more.

The author.

Two weeks down, 14 to go…

Well, just two weeks into my training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7, I’ve already done it—I missed a long run.

It couldn’t be helped. I came down with a fever and chills that knocked me out of the game for a few days.

The funny thing is, I wasn’t actually planning on doing the 10-mile run on my schedule. I was camping in the Adirondack Mountains, and after two days of canoeing, I had on the docket a 26-mile hike with a total of 10,000 feet of elevation gain. I figured that would be far more taxing on my legs and lungs than any long run, so I could easily just swap it out, a bit overzealously, but swap it out nonetheless. I figured that starting my marathon training by hiking one first would be kind of poetic.

Alas, it wasn’t to be. Read the rest of this entry →

New York, New York. Photo by Fergal Carr.

Cue the theme from Rocky: “Gonna fly now…. Getting strong now…” Yee-haw. Marathon season is here. This week marks the start of training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon. Come Nov. 7, I’ll be strong and ready to fly.

Or will I?

This past weekend, I took a sailing class out in New York Harbor. We sailed from lower Manhattan past the Statue of Liberty to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the iconic start of the race. It was a view of the bridge I’ve never seen before. As the boat cruised underneath, I looked up at the mass of steel and bolts looming above me. My blood rushed. In just 16 weeks I would be crossing that bridge at the start of the New York City Marathon.

I looked back up the bay toward Manhattan. The island was tiny in the distance, seemingly a word away. I gulped. Read the rest of this entry →