Marathon Swag

I love running swag, looking at it makes my day go faster (running nerd alert). And I particularly love these magnets given away at the ING NYC Marathon.

I’ve now run four NYC Marathons (2012 being unofficial since it was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy). They didn’t have it in the swag bag in 2008 when I ran my first race (sad face).

My first marathon was 4:11:19. By number two (2009), exactly one year later, I took more than 15 minutes off my time. This, my friends is the difference between consistent training and only doing long runs on the weekend.The following year (2010), I did a little better (by six seconds – I am nothing if not consistent). And by my third year (2010), I had run the Chicago Marathon the month prior (and PR’d with a time of 3:51:18 – I have a great story about how I though I was on track for a 3:45 which I’ll tell another time) which is the reason for the slow down.

At any rate, here’s one of the things I look at when sitting at my desk to motivate through a tough work day: