On the Road to Marathon

A long, long time ago I decided to run a marathon. (By "long, long" I mean before solidifying my college major but after my mission... aka winter 2001/2002.) I'll not get into why I chose to run a marathon. It's irrelevent to this post.

I was extremely naive about marathons. I had run cross country in high school though, so I knew I could at least run 5 miles. Against almost every internal inclination, my first training run was slated at 15 miles. I made 12. At which point I nearly passed out. Remember that this was after my mission?

After a short recovery period from the initial death march, I began a regimen that I really enjoyed. I was running 3 or 4 times per week, putting in 5- to 7-miles regularly. I maxed out with a 13-mile run.

Then, almost instantly, my leg began to ache. Terribly. Running felt fine, but after a run my leg would throb for hours, sometimes days. Ice and heat couldn't touch it. After several x-rays and a bone scan a stress fracture was revealed in my femur. The doctor's recommendation was to stop running. I stopped for a couple of months and then tried to ease back into running, but the pain returned. So I quit running. Reality had struck, and I can be thankful it wasn't worse.

Last fall when I was riding with my friend Ryan in the Tour des Lacs, he mentioned thinking about running a marathon. I laughed at him and probably told him he was crazy. (You know, cause I'm such a good friend.) Inside, though I was thinking that I had some unfinished business in that realm.

At the beginning of December I was talking to a buddy who had made an attempt at a marathon last year, and I asked him if he was going to try again this year. Then, almost before he could answer I blurted out that if he challenged me to join him I probably would. See how smooth I am? Sheesh.

The next day I looked up some facts about marathons. I had always figured that 26.2 miles was an ugly english equivalent to a round metric number. Yeah... 42.195 km. I was further horrified to learn that the first guy to run "a marathon" died because of the exertion. Did I really want to do this?

Too late. I had not left that December conversation with my typical wishy-washy commitment. I had fully agreed to do it.

So I'm on the road. I've got 16 training runs under my belt. I got a water bottle belt for Christmas. I invested in new shoes. I'm fully committed, and I'm even following a training plan! In good fashion though, I truncated the 30-week plan into a shorter 22-week timeframe. I mean let's not be too thorough.