Weekly Recap: 13 Weeks Until the New York City Marathon!

13 weeks until New York City- yikes! I do not feel prepared.

Once again, training wasn’t spectacular for my second week in India, though I tried my best…work came first.

Speaking of work…these puppies at my office. I want to bring them all home 🙁 Monday:  I started the week pretty strong, with a 10 mile treadmill run. 2 miles easy, 6 at an 8 min/mile pace, 2 easy.

Tuesday: 8 easy on the treadmill. If you recall from last week, I took a hard fall when running alone so I decided no more running (at least where I was) alone. So lots of treadmill time. Super boring, though thank you guys for the podcast recommendations on last week’s post; I’ve been enjoying Up and Vanished!

Wednesday:  Bad news- I got a stomach bug. I guess it was bound to happen. This article from the New York Times kind of explains it best; it could have been anything but I think it was the food I ate for dinner Tuesday night. I know people say it takes 12-18 hours for whatever it is to affect you, but I think it hits me faster than that. Definitely no running this day. I did manage to go to work, but I didn’t really eat anything all day…It was not fun.

Thursday: Treadmill test…My stomach felt better so I ran 7.5 miles in the morning. I ran another 5k in the evening for 10.6 miles on the day.

Friday: 15.5 miles on the treadmill, or a 25k. That’s a LOT of treadmill time. I broke it up by 5k’s and would take water break after every 5k. It helped mentally. Five 5k’s seems shorter than 15.5 miles 🙂

I was done early enough that I could log into work for awhile before heading to the airport with my manager Lisa (who is also here for work, though in a different office building) in the early evening to fly to Jaipur for the weekend.

(I actually checked out of my hotel as well and checked into a new one in Bandra Kurla, which is much closer to better running routes!)

Guess what? Starbucks at the Mumbai airport- I’m a bit of a fiend and it had been 15 days since I tasted the magic of the mermaid: A Weekend in Jaipur: I really want to dedicate a full travel post to this marvelous place when I have a bit more time to share all the fantastic details.

Jaipur is a northern city in India, in the state of Rajastan. It was about a 2 hour flight on Jet Airways to Jaipur from Mumbai. Tons of history and places to explore… Just like the United States, India has dozens of states and each one is so different. I didn’t know this at all prior to coming to India! I don’t know what I thought, but I guess it’s just like the US. It’s like comparing New York City to Portland…or Los Angeles to Minneapolis, perhaps. Totally different.

Jaipur still has 5 million people, but that’s a whole lot less than the 20 million in Mumbai. And while its monsoon season in Mumbai, it was sunny and HOT in Jaipur every day. The communities in Jaipur seemed a bit more traditional too, in dress and ceremony, based on what I saw and experienced during my 2 short days there.

Even with just two short days, I loved it in Jaipur and would like to go back again. Part of the reason I loved it is because my manager and I stayed at the BEST hotel, the Oberoi Rajvillas, which was honestly one of the top 5 hotels I ever been to, better than most Four Seasons, Ritz Carltons, Fairmont hotels…

The Oberoi Rajvillas had such beautiful grounds and amazing service. 5 stars! And peacocks. LOTS of peacocks who also enjoyed the beautiful Oberoi grounds. (Not to mention Jaipur has a lot of beautiful people…and I think the Oberoi must hire only good looking people 🙂 …)

Anyways, I am really glad Lisa and I decided to explore more within India. Originally we had looked at going to Oman or Sri Lanka (I even went as far as getting a tourist visa for Sri Lanka) but I’m happy with the experience we had within India.

A part of that wonderful experience in Jaipur was running of course;  Venkatraman, the man that I have run with in Mumbai in the Zipper club, that I met at the RRCA convention, connected me with a man named Manoj in Jaipur. Manoj organizes the Pink City Marathon.

Why the Pink City Marathon? Jaipur is commonly referred to as the “Pink City”, because a large portion of the “old city” is this color- Instagram heaven! Manoj runs with the Pink City Runner club, and invited me to tag along with them during my weekend visit. (By the way, if you’re interested in visiting Jaipur, visit in December and you can run the Pink City Marathon! There’s currently a 10k and a 21k race and it looks like a LOT of fun, and a cool way to see Jaipur. Manoj is offering free registration and I think a free place to stay if international runners come! Anyways, both Saturday and Sunday, he drove out of his way to the Oberoi to pick me up to join him for a run. Saturday: Manoj pick me up and drove me to Jaipur Central Park. This is a 4km gravel track around a polo ground. We ran it twice for 5 miles, stopping for bottled water at his car at the half way point (that he provided, how thoughtful!)

After the run, we met up with the group at a local popular place for an Indian tea 🙂 Sunday: Again, Manoj picked me up and this time drove me to the base of the road leading up to Nahagarh Fort for a hill run. Most of his running group was running up the hill (10k) and back down, but I had more touring with a guide booked for early that morning, so I had told him I could only join for 10k- just the “up” not the “down.”

The hill was quite steep- you can tell from these pictures how high we ran. (Manoj makes a pretty good temporary “Instagram buddy” doesn’t he? He kept offering to take pics and was pretty good at it.) This steep route wasn’t easy! I would have liked to have had more time to also run back down, but I’m glad I got a chance to see this route. Lots of fun.

The best part? Today I received this picture. My visit was documented in the Jaipur Daily Newspaper- I’m honored 🙂 Summary: 55 miles of running.

There were a few doubles that I missed and of course I missed all of Wednesday due to illness. I didn’t do ANY strength training 🙁

I am the first to admit that this hasn’t been my strongest training block for a marathon, but maybe I still have time to make a comeback once I’m back to the US!

Dustin arrives on Thursday and we are heading to Delhi then Agra to see the Taj Mahal! I’m hoping to connect with someone in Delhi for a running tour there in the morning before heading to Agra where the Taj is. And of course looking forward to seeing Dustin 🙂

Please link up with Jess and me as usual. Here are the details: