As I write this tonight, Rich and I are watching "Spirit of the Marathon." We've seen it before, but how inspiring though! People of all shapes and sizes, training for the Chicago Marathon. It was the one that I was supposed to do last fall, and probably goes without saying that it was one that I didn't do. Lots of things got in the way of it, but they're all things that I let get in the way. Things that seemed, at the time, more important than my goal. I pushed off the running, especially longer distances, for too many weeks, and then there just wasn't time to train for the long distances that I would really need on a 26.2 mile race. In the end, we went to Chicago, but I stood on the sidelines and cheered, and Rich completed his second marathon. I'm disappointed in myself for not finishing something that I started, or completing a goal. But everything happens for a reason. And perhaps that reason was just to be there on the sidelines to cheer people along in preparation of their last mile of that course; or to give people homemade bracelets letting them know that they were inspiring me for the future.
And what happened last year brought me to where I am today. Today marks Day 1 of my training for the Myrtle Beach Mini Marathon on 10/20/13. This will be my first half. I'm not sure why I didn't aim for that first instead of a full? But anyway, my goal is the 13.1 in October! This will surprisingly, be Rich's first half as well, and I'm pretty sure he'll be training by my side for much of the next 4 months. I'm nervous, but also excited. Coming off the high from last weekend of completing the Down & Dirty 5k (I hope to do a separate post on that), I really do feel like I can do anything. I am confident that I now know the results I am capable of when I put in lots of hard work. I'm sure I'll make some people upset when I have to pass on some stuff that they'd love for me to do. But I know I wrote that same line when I decided to run Chicago last year, and I didn't stick with it, and that's what caused me to miss out. I won't, and I can't, let myself make that same mistake again this year.
I was thinking today when Rich and I were out for the first day of training - I had read quite a while back that someone had mentioned something about the "half" marathon. We don't call a 5k a "half 10k". We call it what it is - a 5k. So why do we call a 13.1 a "half marathon"? I feel like it kind of lessens how big the race actually is. A 13.1 mile race is a long race! So I told Rich today that I'm going to stop calling it the half marathon, and only call it "the 13.1" or "the race".
Being the first day of training, it was pretty simple. We just did a 2 mile walk, so we stayed here at the complex. The straightaway from the beginning of the complex up to the stop sign is 1/4 mile, so we walked down & back 4 times. In total we probably did closer to 2 1/2 miles if you count the short walk from that straightaway to our door. It was 76* out, which is a decent temperature, but the dewpoint was 70. This equals, disgustingly humid. The hills at our complex and the humidity (training in rough stuff) will make the race itself seem like a breeze hopefully. Consistency is key though, and even though I've said this many times before, I'd like to remain consistent with this blog during my training as well. Here's to an awesome next 111 days!
