Sunday was a great day in the name of fitness here in the city of Pittsburgh. I had the great honor of cheering on a number of my college friends at this years marathon. A really good friend of mine from Saint Vincent College participated in the race and finished in 3 hours, and 27 minutes and 9 seconds. Her pace for the entire race held steady at 7 minutes and 55 seconds per mile.
Dang…now that’s FIT!
Friends, I’d like to introduce you to my college pal, Katie Macioce, who is responsible for the amazing run times I mentioned above. After completing the marathon, Katie 
and I met up for some long overdue catching up. She was nice enough to do an interview with me about how she trained for the marathon. Now, I have always been curious about how people train for such a major event, so I was incredibly excited to have such a great opportunity to speak with a runner one on one about their training (plus, we decided to do the interview over dinner, and who doesn’t love eating with great friends?)
Here’s the interview with Marathon Runner, Katie Macioce
The Primal Burgher: What initially made you want to do the Pittsburgh Marathon?
Katie Macioce: I am a competitive person and I wanted to push myself to a new limit. I really love running and have done cross-country in my past. My ultimate goal was to qualify for the Boston marathon in 2014, and I officially do qualify for the race. Boston requires running the marathon faster than 3 hours and 35 minutes and I made it! It was a great feat for me!
The Primal Burgher: I am super curious about how you trained for this race. I know what my training was like for RKC, so…how did you train for the Pittsburgh Marathon?
Katie Macioce: I started training in January 2013. I did 4 to 5 runs on hills. I would run up a hill as a sprint and once I hit 30 seconds, I would jog back down the hill. I did my 30 second interval hill runs about 4 to 5 times a few days a week to get set for my next month.
In February, I would train light or rest on monday. Tuesday I normally ran 8 to 10 miles as a workout. The first two miles were a warm up jog and then I would progress to tempo runs. I would run 2 minute sprints then 1 minute jog for the remainder of the run.
On Wednesday I had what I call a “semi long day”. I would run 9 to 12 miles to condition myself to run in a fatigued state. I know that sounds weird, but you log a lot of miles at once when you run a marathon, so I wanted to be sure I could still run well even when I was fatigued knowing that I would fatigue at some point during the actual race. Thursday I did an endurance run. I would run 6 to 8 miles at a pace of about 7 minutes and 40 seconds per mile.
Friday I did a 5 to 6 mile run at my own pace depending on how I felt because I would go for a long run on Saturday. Now, Saturday I would run between 17 to 22 miles (I normally averaged about 18 miles to be honest). I did this just to get used to running on my feet for extended periods of time. On Sunday, I took an off day from training and rested.
The Primal Burgher: My God! That’s a ton of running! That really has to push your limits mentally too, right? How did you mentally prepare for the Pittsburgh Marathon?
Katie Macioce: Honestly, I would just day-dream about winning the race to keep me motivated and to keep myself in a positive mind set while I was running. Focussing on my goal kept me happy, and you need to keep yourself happy when you’re running long distances. I consider it a form of meditation while running. It’s crazy how well it works!
The Primal Burgher: Will you run another marathon?
Katie Macioce: Absolutely! I am running a relay team for an ultra marathon. It’s a 70 mile run but I am only running 19 mils of that run. That’s June 8th in Lauren Highlands. Then I am running the Montor Trail Half marathon in Robinson Township. And, now that I qualify for Boston, I want to run the Boston Marathon in 2014.
The Primal Burgher: That’s awesome! I met a lot of people at the race who told me they would ultimately like to attempt the marathon sometime in their life. What would you say to other people who are interested n participating in a marathon?
Katie Macioce: If you don’t have the desire to run the race, and you aren’t 100% sure you really want to put forth the effort for the race, don’t do it. You HAVE to be willing to spend the time and train for an event this intense. It isn’t easy, and there are inherent risks with running long distances like this. However, if you are willing to push yourself to reach a goal that is this amazing, do it! It’ll be worth all the hard work! Believe me!
There you have it folks! I want to thank Katie Macioce for being so willing to do this interview with me and for doing so well at the marathon! Also, congratulations to all the participants that ran the race on Sunday! You all did amazing! That’s all for the blog today! Remember to eat smart, train hard and enjoy your life!
Love Always,
Janelle Pica-RKC, NASM CPT
