I’m Going To Be A Marathoner

Source: monumentalmarathon.com

The first time I participated in a 5K, one of my friends tried to get me to run with the chipped runners.  She told me I only had to run a 9 minute pace.  I looked at her like she was crazy.  It was 2006 (I think) and still a few years before I would start seriously running.  I asked her if she’d ever run the Mini (as it was just a couple of weeks away from this 5K), although as I think about it, I have no idea why running a 5K at a 9 minute pace equated to running a half marathon.  Regardless, her response was, yes, many times, and a number of marathons.  I again looked at her like she was crazy, thinking to myself that running a marathon sounded like one of the most horrible things you could ever voluntarily do to yourself.  Then I asked her how long a marathon was, and almost died.

Now here I am, a little over six years later, getting ready to engage in an activity that I once thought sounded like torture.  I no longer think it sounds like torture, but I am still a bit nervous.  Mostly, though, I’m really freaking excited.

After my first half marathon, I thought that would be the longest distance I would run.  It was doable.  I was content to keep running half marys.  I’m not sure exactly what changed or when, but after a year or so, a full didn’t seem so daunting.  I entertained thoughts of doing one the fall of 2011.  Then I ran my worst race to date – the 2011 Mini.  I went out way too fast, and I hit a wall at mile 9.  I spent the last three miles telling myself I was never running another race again, I might not even run again, and I was never doing a full.  Ever.  Never ever.  Fall training season came around, and between an injury and the still-fresh agony of the Mini, I sat out the season.

As any runner who has vowed to quit running knows, my threats were hollow, and after a few months I was back at it.  I started training for another half, still unsure about whether to tackle a full.  Then the hamstring pain flared up, and I really didn’t know what to do.  To top it off, I couldn’t find a training program that I liked.  In fact, I was still on the fence until last Saturday, when I finally registered for the Monumental Marathon on the last day to get the early bird rate.

So far the hamstring pain has been tolerable, and the program that I stitched together from four or so other programs has been serving me well.  I finally splurged and bought a Garmin.  It has been a great asset for my speed workouts.

I know that there are still 17 weeks of training, and I’ve yet to run a run a distance I’ve never run before, but I’m looking forward to this process.  I think I will learn a lot about myself.  I’ve already learned that while I really hate getting up early, I really hate running in 90+ degree weather more.  If you had told me even six months ago that I would be willingly running between 5:45 and 7:45 in the morning five days a week in order to avoid the sun and heat of the afternoon, I would have said you were nuts.  But here I am, doing exactly that with very little complaining.

My main goals are to stay healthy and injury-free, have fun, and cross the finish line on November 3.  I’ll be sharing the journey with you here.  For those of you also training for a marathon, or thinking about running one, I leave you with this thought, sent to me by one of my good friends: