Randy Miyazaki/Trackandfieldphoto.comDelilah DiCrescenzo in the 5,000-meter run in last year’s April Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif.Fashion Week is coming up, and that means scads of runway shows and presentations and a whole lot of late nights. So, what’s a T fashion editor to do? We turned to Delilah DiCrescenzo, an All-American titleholder for Columbia University’s cross-country and track team. She’s also a founding member of the New Jersey/New York Track Club, which is sponsored by Puma. “We always say two days before the race is the most important night for sleep,” DiCrescenzo says. “But that doesn’t mean overcompensating.”
For those of us who may have skipped a class at Soul Cycle and choose Starbucks over Organic Avenue, DiCrescenzo stresses a “substantial and healthy” meal like fish and pasta. But what to do when Feb. 9 rolls around and you’re staring at the starting line? Let’s get the obvious things out of the way first. Drink lots of water, and fill your Céline tote with the following: a supply of healthy snack bars (Delilah prefers Larabars), vitamins (calcium, a multivitamin and Floradix for iron), Omega3 Squeeze packets, Lollia travel-size hand cream, Tokyomilk lip shine and Tata Harper Reparative Moisturizer, Icy Hot Power Gel (high heels take a toll on the calf muscles). Buy a pair of compression socks (to help blood circulation during flights to Europe) and take Epsom salt baths nightly in order to relax and “visualize the finish line.”
DiCrescenzo’s top suggestion: “Get a medical massage once a week,” she says. “Not the pampering kind, the aggressive kind. It’s not necessarily that you have an injury that needs to be worked out — it’s more like you’re preventing one from coming on.” Try Ohm Spa (260 Fifth Avenue; 212-845-9812) in New York, Hale Clinic (7 Park Crescent) in London, Culti Day Spa (La Angelo Mauri, 5) in Milan and the Four Seasons Hotel George V Spa (31, Avenue George V) in Paris. She implores us to take it one day at a time. “You can’t think of Day 2.”