16 Mile Run

Never in my life could I have imagined running 16 miles. I used to tell my friends that running a marathon was unhealthy. Mainly from the stress fractures nearly all of them got while training. And here I am heading out on an unfathomable distance.

I've got my running gloves on, my hydration belt, 1 Gu, and 2 packages of 100 calorie cookies made my elves that live in trees (hey, I live 30 miles from my running store and forgot to get Gu). And while I like Gu those cookies were awesome.

I ran past the county fair grounds, the High School, and lots and lots of farmland. The air was brisk and running through fog can be a gloriously cooling experience. I may have moved slowly and ran out of Gatorade, but at the end of the run I felt so good I considered running another .2 miles for symbolism sake. Thankfully I shook off the exercise induced delirium and walked the rest of the way home.

And this was my test run. If I can run 16 I might as well run 26.2. And I felt better than I did after running 14 miles.

To Run or Not to Run

I work in Sales. When you work in Sales, every 4 years or so, your company may get all of the sales team together for a National Sales meeting. Ours will be in San Antonio this year. I have never been to Texas. I don't have any huge desire to visit Texas either (maybe Austin). Not that I hate Texas, it just doesn't jump out at me.

It's very easy to deviate your corporate flight back and visit someone or extend your stay in a city. Your company usually just charges you for any extra cost they incur. So I started my search to see what was in the area during my stay. Football? Nope. Concert? Not really. All I know about San Antonio is it's home to the Alamo.

So I try one more search and see what races are being run on Sunday, the only real day I have available. I thought it might be a long shot but what do I find? The Rock n' Roll San Antonio Marathon. But I can't run a marathon. I have only run a half Marathon and I only have about 8 weeks before the race. I decide to check a training guide anyway.

I look for the full marathon training run and how many weeks it takes to finish the rest of the training. 8 weeks. So maybe it can be done. I'd have to stick to my training. Consistency has been something I've lacked with all of the summer weddings monopolizing my weekends.

I decide to casually give it a try. I would do the training and test the water to see if I was ready to up my mileage. I don't have to commit to signing up or changing my travel for a couple weeks so why not give it a shot. When I share this idea of casually training for a Marathon my friends tell me I am foolish. My friends tell me the laid back approach won't be a successful one.

The real reason I stay casual is to avoid a let down if I fail or if my body fails me. Then some of the doubts start to creep in as people bring them up. You've only been running for 6 months. Big guys like us aren't supposed to run that long. You realize you will be running for over five and a half hours right? You don't know anyone in San Antonio to support you or even cheer you on. You will be coming off of 5 intense days of tiring corporate training days. And the list goes on and on.

My mind is made up. I will finish a marathon in November. It may not be pretty. It may not be ideal. But I will finish.