Run, Karla, Run!

Runners cross the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge at the start of the ING New York City marathon. (Photo: Fergal Carr, via Creative Commons)

Time is ticking to apply for the 2013 ING New York City Marathon lottery. Runners have until 11:59 p.m. EST on May 24 to apply for one of the 47,500 spots in the race on Sunday, November 3. Runners who have a guaranteed entry must also claim their spot by May 24.

New York Road Runners, the organization that puts on the event and one that I freelance for as host of On The Run, will choose participants from the lottery on May 29 through a random draw.

Last year, more than 140,000 people applied for approximately 47,000 starting spots on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, most of which were already allocated to runners who gained bibs through one of the ING NYC Marathon’s guaranteed entry programs: running for charity partners, international travel partners, meeting a qualifying standard, completing NYRR’s 9+1 program, being denied by the lottery the previous three consecutive years, or running the race more than 15 times. Just 15,000 runners gained entry through the lottery, up from 9,000 people in 2011. Read the rest of this entry →

Ready to shave 1 hour from my marathon time.

In just a few days, I’ll be staring at the starting line of the Walt Disney World Marathon on January 13, 2013. It will be my sixth marathon and the first I’m not running for a personal best. This one is just for fun, and I don’t care how long it takes me. I’m going to wear a costume, take pictures with Disney characters and enjoy a course that runs through four theme parks, a race track and a baseball diamond.

To honor the occasion, I thought I’d take a look back at my second marathon, which was the exact opposite. At the 2008 ING New York City Marathon, I set out to shatter my one and only marathon time—clocked on the same course just a year before—by an hour.

This race report was first published on TheSportsBank.net in November 2008, but I thought I’d finally put it up here at RunKarlaRun.com too. After all, it was my first true marathon PR.

I also happen to be in an ’80s cover band called The Fades. This month marks the 5th anniversary of our first show. We’re all—save one—marathoners. In fact, I’m the slowest of the bunch. This post was inspired by them. Rock on, Fades!

Marathon Redux, ’80s Music Edition

I did it. I ran the ING New York City Marathon. Again. And by ran, I mean ran. The whole blessed thing. Who knew all it would take was zealous devotion to a few ‘80s songs? Read the rest of this entry →

Crossing the finish line. (Photo: brightroom)

In just four days, I’ll be staring at the starting line of the Philadelphia Marathon on November 18, 2012. It will be my fifth marathon in five years.

To honor the occasion, I thought I’d take a look back at my very first marathon and first stab at a race recap of the 2007 ING New York City Marathon. I finished the race in 5:54. I aim to finish Philly in 4:15. I’ve come a long way in the last five years. Little did I know how right I was when I proclaimed, “I think I may have a new addiction.”

This race report was first published on TheSportsBank.net in November 2007, but I thought I’d finally put it up here at RunKarlaRun.com too. After all, it’s the marathon that started it all. You can read about what brought me to tackle my first marathon in Because You Only Get One First Marathon.

Don’t Stop Believing

First published November 2007

My first marathon: 26.2 miles, 5 boroughs, 5 bridges, 39,000 runners, and more than 2 million spectators on the mean streets of New York.

My first-timer’s tiara. (Photo: Christy Hourihan)

I did it. I ran the 2007 ING New York City Marathon. And I did it in a tiara. It was the brainchild of two friends who jokingly—I thought—floated the idea past me and then provided the crown. How could I not wear it? Seriously, my roommate bought it off of a drag queen in Manhattan’s East Village. Come Sunday morning, after six months of training and anticipation, there was only one thing to do: put the tiara on my head, shoes on my feet and run like I’ve never run before. Read the rest of this entry →

Friends lined the course with signs cheering me on. (Photo: Christy Hourihan)

In just five days, I’ll be staring at the starting line of the Philadelphia Marathon on November 18, 2012. It will be my fifth marathon in five years. To honor the occasion, I thought I’d take a look back at my very first marathon and the first piece of writing I ever did about running: “Because You Only Get One First Marathon.”

It was first published on TheSportsBank.net in October 2007, but I thought I’d finally put it up here at RunKarlaRun.com too. After all, it’s the piece that started it all. I’ll put it the accompanying race recap tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Because You Only Get One First Marathon

First published October 2007

I hated running. Hated it. Flames on the side of my face, breathing, breathless, heaving breaths, to borrow a sentiment from Mrs. White in the movie “Clue.” So why, oh why, am I running the New York City Marathon on November 4, 2007? Read the rest of this entry →

One Team Hope For The Warriors runner finishes her marathon.

Scroll down for a slideshow of the unofficial marathon in Central Park.

Some called it the unofficial New York City marathon, some called it the Run Anyway marathon. But no matter what they called it, thousands of runners spontaneously took to Central Park on what would have been Marathon Sunday, November 4 in New York City.

In the wake of the canceled 2012 ING New York City Marathon, many runners tried to make the best of a terrible situation. In addition to running, thousands of marathoners volunteered on Saturday and Sunday in some of the city’s hardest hit areas. An estimated 1,300 alone went to Staten Island on Sunday to drop supplies and help residents clean up. Others helped out in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, the Rockaways in Queens, Newark in New Jersey and parks all over the city.

Thousands of other runners took to Central Park, dropping donations for hurricane relief near the “official” finish line and running a flash mob of sorts. It was like a scene out of “How The Grinch Stole Christmas.” The Whos of Whoville didn’t need the trappings of Christmas. It seems, neither do marathoners. Read the rest of this entry →

Runners pose in front of Cinderella Caste. (Photo: runDisney)

Disney lovers, it’s not too late the run the 20^th Anniversary Walt Disney World Marathon presented by Cigna on Jan. 13. The Marathon, Half Marathon and Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge may be sold-out, but there are still a few ways to get in on the action.

A record 58,000 runners have registered for the event, with 27,000 toeing the line in the half marathon and 25,000 in the marathon. A whopping 10,000 participants will tackle both races as part of Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge, which dares runners to complete the half-marathon on Saturday and the marathon on Sunday during the Walt Disney Marathon Weekend. 

If you’d like to be one of them, you still can by registering through a group, charity, or the Runner’s World Challenge, which give runners access to training advice from Runner’s World editors along with other VIP amenities. Read the rest of this entry →

By now anyone who follows running and/or political news knows that Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan lied about his marathon time. But did you know that you too can run as “fast” as Paul Ryan? The Paul Ryan Time Calculator and its creator Erik Westlund are here to help. Read the rest of this entry →

New York City's Statue of Liberty. (Photo: Phil Hospod)

A bib in the ING New York City Marathon is one of the toughest gets in the world of running. Roughly 140,000 runners apply to earn one of the coveted 47,500 entries. Year after year, runners all over the world are turned away.

Well, here’s one more chance. Nissan is giving away one more “golden” entry into the 2012 race, along with a free trip to the Big Apple, through its Innovation for Endurance program, which highlights elite athletes like Olympic and New York City Marathoner Ryan Hall.

From July 22 through July 28, enter for your chance to win entry into the 2012 ING New York City Marathon along with roundtrip airfare to New York City, hotel accommodations, an official training program, airport transportation, weekend transportation in a Nissan vehicle including transportation to the starting line in Staten Island, a Saturday shake-out run with a Nissan athlete and VIP tickets to the pre-race pasta party and post-race celebration.

Enter the Nissan Innovation for Endurance Golden Entry Sweepstakes at facebook.com/InnovationForEndurance through 11:59 p.m. ET on July 28.

Karla Bruning is a veteran journalist and running nerd. She has completed four marathons, two triathlons, trains with the New York Harriers and is a member of New York Road Runners. Follow Karla’s “Notes From a Running Nerd” at RunKarlaRun.com, Facebook and Twitter@KBruning.

The 2011 Foot Locker Five Borough Challengers (Photo: nycmarathon.org)

Are you running the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 4? Do you live in one of New York City’s five boroughs? You could be a part of the Foot Locker Five Borough Challenge, a race within a race at the ING New York City Marathon.

Five runners—one from each of New York City’s boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island—run together for the first half of the race, and then face off against each other in the second.

This year, Foot Locker is looking for team members who have used running to overcome significant challenges in their lives. Read the rest of this entry →

Letting kids race teaches them that fitness is fun. (Photo: runDisney)

When Disney puts on a race, they don’t just plan one running event. As the world’s largest media empire—Disney sits at No. 1 on the Fortune 500 list of entertainment companies—they orchestrate an entire weekend of festivities that everyone in the family can enjoy, from first-time runners to marathon masters, kids to adults, and even spectators. That’s one of the best parts of Disney race weekends: there is something for everyone.

At Disney’s Princess Half Marathon Weekend from Feb. 24-26, my family is putting the Disney races to the test. At least one family member will be participating in every race distance offered during the weekend, including the Princess Half Marathon, Tangled Royal Family 5K and Disney Royal Family Kids’ Races. We’ll also hit the Pasta in the Park Party at Epcot and Disney’s Fit for a Princess Expo. This is my third Disney race weekend, but the first with my nephew and niece. It makes me happy to pass along my love of running to another generation. But more than that, I think it’s important to include kids in fitness events from an early age. Read the rest of this entry →

The author and her soon-to-be-fiance after the Disney Wine & Dine Half Marathon. He proposed just a few moments later.

I met this guy. After chatting a while, he mentioned that he was registered to run the ING New York City Marathon. He’d never run a marathon before. Heck, he’d never been on a single run, he said. He belonged to an Ultimate Disc league, a sport that requires a lot of running. But he was no runner. His sister had talked him into it, he said. The race was nine months away and he had no idea how to train for it.

As luck would have it, I was a runner. I ran the New York City Marathon just three months before, and was registered to run it again as well. So I offered to show him the ropes of marathon training, and take him on his very first run.

It was an unseasonably warm February day. We headed out to Central Park, where we’d met for a casual walk just a week before. We ran up to Belvedere Castle overlooking Turtle Pond and the Great Lawn, then jogged through the Ramble and back to the southern entrance to the park. He’d never visited those parts of Central Park before, he said. Stick with me, I said. As a runner, you see a lot of things you don’t notice otherwise.

Well, he stuck with me. Four years later, that guy is my fiancé, and running has played a large part in our courtship. Read the rest of this entry →

Making goals for the year can help keep you motivated. Photo by Charles Thompson.

Runners tend to be goal-oriented people. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but so many of us have a few dreams hitched to our running shoes. It’s the nature of the sport; when there are hundreds to thousands of us in any given race, the vast majority of us aren’t in it to win it.

We call them races, but we’re really racing against ourselves more than any of the people around us. Unless, that is, you are national class runner who is fast enough to actually win, like some of my friends and teammates who’ve nabbed victories at races all over the globe like the Red Rock Canyon Marathon in Nevada, the Brooklyn Marathon in New York, and the Antarctica Marathon.

But if you’re a mid-packer like me, you’ve probably never won a road race, unless it was in high school. I know the sweet taste of victory as a swimmer and a rower, but it has eluded me as an adult runner. My best finish was 10th in a local race in Rhode Island. I felt like I’d won the Olympics. Which is why making and then chasing down goals is so important to me as a runner. If I can’t win the race, I can still win the goal. Read the rest of this entry →

Photo courtesy of New York Road Runners.

The ING New York City Marathon on Sunday, Nov. 6 gave us two truly exciting races in both the men’s and women’s competitions. Three runners shattered—and I mean shattered—the course record in the men’s competition. And one runner gave a guts-on-the-floor performance that likely cost her the race in the women’s competition. Scroll down for athlete interviews, stats and more as I was ringside in the Timex Media Center at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Columbus Circle, giving a behind the scenes play-by-play of what it’s like in the press room as a New York Road Runners Social Media Reporter. Here’s how it went:

2011 ING New York City Marathon Live Blog

8:30 am: Good morning! I’m here in the Timex Media Center at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City. We are one minute away from the wheelchair start of the 2011 ING New York City Marathon! Read the rest of this entry →

The start of the ING New York City Marathon. Photo by Fergal Carr.

For the first time since 2007, I’m not running a marathon. It feels a little odd, especially as the ING New York City Marathon approaches on Sunday, Nov. 6. I’ve run the race three times—each to a personal best. When I ran Chicago instead in 2009, I was out on the course cheering for my friends who were running the Big Apple.

Not one to idly let the marathon pass me by, I’ll still be participating in another way this year. New York Road Runners recruited me to be one of their Social Media Reporters. I’m teaming up with NYRR TV’s The Daily Cool Down hosted by Olympian Carrie Tollefson—a daily recap show of all the hustle and bustle surrounding marathon week—on Friday night and Saturday, tweeting as they run around the city capturing the excitement of marathon weekend. Then on race day, I’ll be blogging live from the marathon media center, sharing what’s really going on behind the scenes of the world’s biggest marathon. Read the rest of this entry →