Run, Karla, Run!

Emmanuel Mutai won the 2011 London Marathon with a new course record. Photo by EStepnist/FLickr.

The ING New York City Marathon is the world’s biggest marathon. It’s no wonder the race attracts some of the world’s biggest names in running. Emmanuel Mutai, Martin Lel, and Jaouad Gharib will join defending champion Gebre Gebremariam and 2009 champion Meb Keflezighi in the race on November 6.

Kenya’s Lel, 33, won the ING New York City Marathon in 2003 and 2007, and will be returning to the race for the first time since that 2007 victory. He also won the Virgin London Marathon in 2003, 2007 and 2008, and placed fifth at the 2008 Olympics. After battling two years of injuries he came back with a second place finish in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon in April, losing to none other than Emmanuel Mutai. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo by Phil Hospod

On June 3, 1972, 78 women entered the world’s first ladies-only road race. On June 9, 2007, I ran the race as my very first 10K, along with 3,521 other women. Only four years later, the race has reached capacity around 5,000 runners—all of them pavement-pounding women. Tomorrow is the 40th running of the NYRR New York Mini 10K. I’ll be there to sing the national anthem, run the race and celebrate how far women—myself included—have come in our sport.

The Mini

The original Mini, named after the mini-skirt, was staged at a time when women were just starting to break gender barriers in running and sports at large. 1972 was a landmark year for women’s running. Read the rest of this entry →

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 →

With only four days until the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7, my excitement is ramping up exponentially. So I made a New York City mix—a love note to the city I adore, and love to run. These are my favorite songs about New York. There are lots of standards, some show tunes, rock songs, folk, rap and more. It seems everybody loves to sing about New York.

Happy listening, happy running, and when you’re facing the Queensboro Bridge at mile 15 of the marathon, just remember what Simon and Garfunkel sang in “The 59^th Street Bridge Song” (another name New Yorkers use for the Queensboro): “Life—I love you. All is Groovy!”

If you have a favorite New York City song, list it below! Read the rest of this entry →

Runners tend to be goal-oriented people. Whatever the goal may be, we plot, we plan and we train to make it happen—running right, eating right, sleeping right, doing everything “right.” But what happens when something goes wrong?

I found out the hard way in the last two weeks of my training for the 2010 ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 7. Reassessing goals and shifting expectations are among the hardest things a runner can do, especially when the goal is in sight.

Take Ryan Hall. After a hot streak in 2007 and 2008—he broke the North American half-marathon record, won the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials and at the London Marathon logged the fastest time ever by an American-born runner—Hall was officially dubbed the next great American marathoner. In 2009, he placed third in the Boston Marathon and won the Philadelphia Distance Run.

Then he made a goal: to break the U.S. marathon record at the 2010 Chicago Marathon on Oct. 10. 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 →

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 →