Well my friends, we are now officially under 1 week until marathon day and I have a lot going through my head but am surprisingly less panicked than I was expecting to be. I'm still panicked.
Trust the training.
I'm panicked that my mysterious leg injury will flare up and cripple me. I'm panicked that I didn't get that 20 miler in because of said leg injury. I'm panicked that something will happen this week to throw everything off. Was I right to swim and bike in place of running when my leg was really acting up or should I have run through it? Or should I have seen a doctor and now my leg is too weak to carry me through?
Endurance events are hard. I don't think I'm shocking anyone with that groundbreaking sentence but there's so much more that adds to the difficulties than just the sheer distance. The great Kara Goucher once talked about how amazed she is by marathon runners who aren't professionals because not only do we have to balance training with another job but we're also out there a whole lot longer. 26.2 miles in 3 hours is a lot different than 26.2 in 5 or 6 hours and I unfortunately fall into the latter. My splits and pace and overall time won't be anything to write home about but the fact that I can grind it out for 5+ hours is worth mentioning. At least to me. It's also hard to do this stuff because despite seeing 45,000 people toe the line in Chicago yesterday, there's still a relatively small amount of people you encounter during your day to day life who will "get it" and it's hard for me not to be a little disappointed by that. Maybe it's because I've done a marathon before. Or maybe it's because I make so much more of a fuss over triathlons and Raleigh than this race but it's been a bit of a bummer how few people have actually even mentioned my race to me. I have the lifers of course who whether or not they get it have been there through every up and down of training and understand that it's a big deal to me but then there are those you expect to at least say something and nope. Nada. It's weird. It's still 6 days away and when it's not your life it's hard to stay amped over something that's still decently far away so I'll let it slide. But if I get back to my phone Sunday afternoon and don't have the obligatory "Good Luck" notes I'm coming after all of you!
Just kidding :)
This wasn't meant to be a downer post. There are some people I'm definitely disappointed in but for the most part I've done a great job of surrounding myself with really special and supportive people. I should really do a post about each of them one of these days although I'm not sure if they'd be comfortable with the resulting fame.
So what about you? Do you have something big and scary coming up or that you're ready to tackle? It doesn't have to be exercise related. In my mind a career change or physical move from one place to another are way scarier than any race I plan to tackle. Let's hear it!
Trust the training.
I'm panicked that my mysterious leg injury will flare up and cripple me. I'm panicked that I didn't get that 20 miler in because of said leg injury. I'm panicked that something will happen this week to throw everything off. Was I right to swim and bike in place of running when my leg was really acting up or should I have run through it? Or should I have seen a doctor and now my leg is too weak to carry me through?
Endurance events are hard. I don't think I'm shocking anyone with that groundbreaking sentence but there's so much more that adds to the difficulties than just the sheer distance. The great Kara Goucher once talked about how amazed she is by marathon runners who aren't professionals because not only do we have to balance training with another job but we're also out there a whole lot longer. 26.2 miles in 3 hours is a lot different than 26.2 in 5 or 6 hours and I unfortunately fall into the latter. My splits and pace and overall time won't be anything to write home about but the fact that I can grind it out for 5+ hours is worth mentioning. At least to me. It's also hard to do this stuff because despite seeing 45,000 people toe the line in Chicago yesterday, there's still a relatively small amount of people you encounter during your day to day life who will "get it" and it's hard for me not to be a little disappointed by that. Maybe it's because I've done a marathon before. Or maybe it's because I make so much more of a fuss over triathlons and Raleigh than this race but it's been a bit of a bummer how few people have actually even mentioned my race to me. I have the lifers of course who whether or not they get it have been there through every up and down of training and understand that it's a big deal to me but then there are those you expect to at least say something and nope. Nada. It's weird. It's still 6 days away and when it's not your life it's hard to stay amped over something that's still decently far away so I'll let it slide. But if I get back to my phone Sunday afternoon and don't have the obligatory "Good Luck" notes I'm coming after all of you!
Just kidding :)
This wasn't meant to be a downer post. There are some people I'm definitely disappointed in but for the most part I've done a great job of surrounding myself with really special and supportive people. I should really do a post about each of them one of these days although I'm not sure if they'd be comfortable with the resulting fame.
So what about you? Do you have something big and scary coming up or that you're ready to tackle? It doesn't have to be exercise related. In my mind a career change or physical move from one place to another are way scarier than any race I plan to tackle. Let's hear it!
Something I'm scared about... I'm doing a wedding Saturday. Nothing unusual, but my awesome second shooter had to leave out of town for a family emergency & I'm on my own!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is going to be fun... & scary... & intimidating...but its the exact same thing. Trust the training :)
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