Runners blog #7

So the QC Marathon is just about 5 weeks away, and I'm feeling pretty confident at this point, I've had an 18 and 19 mile training run and was able to survive both of those. My real test is this Sunday with my first 20 mile run and then again in 2 weeks with my final long run of 20 miles, those 2 runs will be the real barometer of my fitness and whether I will be able to complete this endeavor.

I recently read somewhere by a highly successful ultra runner that she goes into each event with 3 goals, winning is always one of them but the other 2 may vary. Well for me winning isn't even an option so my 3 are as follows,

1) Finish - for a first time marathon this is the ultimate goal and really in question.
2) Run in 4:30, that's under 10.5 min/miles which would be really good by my standards, my stretch goal is 4 hrs though.
3) Have fun! This will be the first and only time I get to run a marathon "for the first time" so a PR (personal record) is a guarantee. Every marathon from here on out will be in some way judged against the previous one and its time, this one is all about survival and having fun.

So this morning I really did not want to run and I of course forced myself to do it, as I often do I started making deals with myself, get out and do 2 miles and see how you feel. Then it turns to "Okay 2 felt good, just do one more, or you can cut short the rest" and so on and so on that goes until the next thing you know I've run the entire course and when I click off my stopwatch, I'm pleasantly surprised to see I've just run my regular 5 1/2 mile loop faster than ever before. A run I never even wanted to do, that I had to bargain my entire way through turns out to be my best one yet, that right there is why I have become addicted to running. That and the time I had a really crappy run, one that left me completely demoralized afterwards, until I realized that even though that run absolutely sucked the life out of me and left me questioning whether I wanted to keep doing this to myself, I remembered that I had still just completed 17 miles in under 3 hrs which let's be honest, isn't something most people can say they did over the weekend. I guess that's what I really love about running, everyone can do it if they want to, but most choose not to do it and even fewer choose to do longer distances. I guess I've kind of always been one to go against the grain a little bit, which suits me just fine I suppose, just wish I'd realized that at a younger age...but that is, I suppose the ignorance of youth.

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