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The joy of running


What most of you don’t know is that I was about to give up the whole idea of the marathon. Until today, it had been four weeks since I had run more than ten miles in its entirety. The last two long runs I did were a month ago. And I walked a chunk of each of them. My reasoning had everything to do with it being too hot, too dehydrated and/or telling myself I needed to be able to run again after walking. And then, I realized I screwed up and started my training by two weeks early. For the next two weeks, I didn’t do any long runs. The week I went camping, I brought my running stuff, but never took it out of my suitcase. Somewhere in all of this, I was over it. Done with running.

Last night, I got a message from a friend who is running the Marine Corps Marathon because of me. She signed up never having run anything more than a 5K. She signed up because I believed in her and told her so. Her message came at the perfect time. We made plans to meet for breakfast, which meant if I wanted to run the 18 miles I should have done yesterday (I rode instead), I would have to get up early. My alarm went off at 5am. Have I mentioned I am on vacation? It took me a few minutes to get my butt out of bed, but I did it! I had some breakfast and was on my way.

My first five miles were done in the dark. The weather was a bit brisk, but perfect for running. I didn’t have a set course. I didn’t plant water and Gatorade. I just ran. Very slowly. My goal was to run about an 11 minute mile for the entire run. I did really well with that for the first couple of miles. However, as the run went on and I felt good, my speed increased. My attitude of “I am so over running!” morphed into “I love running. I can do this for 26.2 miles!” during the course of the three hours and thirteen minutes it took me to run it. Looking at my splits when I got home showed that I ran the last mile in less than ten minutes. A chunk of that was uphill.

Training for a marathon is time consuming. On a good day, it takes me at least ten minutes for each mile I run. That means every time I run, I need to set aside at least an hour. I plan four hours for the longer runs. In the past when training for half-marathons, I did my longer runs with other people. With the exception of a couple of runs, I have run all of this on my own. The past few weeks, I wanted to throw in the towel. I have been discouraged and having a difficult time finding motivation to run. An outside voice gave me what I needed today.

Before today, I had never run more than 16 miles at one time. When I was training for the half marathon, it was running 8 miles that gave me the confidence I needed. Today, it was 18 miles. Today’s run renewed my confidence and joy in running. I have 8.2 more miles to add to my total before I can call myself a marathon runner. But I have no doubt, I will do it! 

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