Week 2 - Recap

Miles: 33

My mileage didn't go up this week because of my 5K race. Packing on miles and competing don't really mix. But, I did increase the mileage of my long run, going up to 12 miles this week.

How do I feel? Good, so far. I'm really making an effort to keep my life organized, which seems to make my headspace a little more orderly as well. I'm trying to write my abs classes ahead of time instead of last minute. Keep the house, and the spaces I use frequently in it, clean. One thing that's still a struggle is trying to actually rest when I have time to rest. I still feel like I have to be doing something at all times, when what I really should be doing is regrouping for the next push. Yesterday, I think I did a really good job of that.

Physically, things are still holding up. I have the usual aches and pains from time to time. My knees start to hurt at the end of a long run, for instance, but I feel like that happens later and later into the run. What I'm trying to accept, however, is that this is the nature of what I'm trying to attempt. At such a distance, there will never be a "pain free" experience. My knees will hurt at some point. "The trick," as T.E. Lawrence says in my favorite film, Lawrence of Arabia, "is not minding that it hurts."

This week will be exciting, I hope. I am going to Madison on Thursday to compete in an aquathon: 1000m open water swim and 5k run. We might make a mini vacation out of it.

Here We Go...

Thanks a lot, Bud Light, for patenting that phrase, by the way. That is the way I'm feeling right now, though. "Here we go." Excited, scared, and unable to predict exactly what the future will hold.

In 12 weeks, or more precisely, 80 days and 11 hours, I'll be standing at another starting line - one that's completely new to me. I've registered for the Fox Cities Marathon on September 19th.

Since I started this running journey three years ago, running a marathon has always been in my sights. But I really wanted to run it. Not walk portions of it or stop. I wanted to race it, as best I could. Not just participate. I wanted to compete at some level. Not just finish. Even now, I still don't feel completely confident that I can achieve those goals I've listed. But I'm ready to try.

So, it looks like this blog might get more personal than I'd originally intended it to be as I take this journey over the next 12 weeks. But I'm ok with that. I hope I'll be able to write more consistently than I've done before. I also think it will be helpful for me to reflect in this space rather than just writing my miles in a running journal.

So. Here we go.