Yesterday I survived a 21 mile run. Actually, owing to an unplanned construction detour, it was almost 22. The best news is that I was still able to walk when I finished! I’ve decided that running a marathon really is ridiculous. I’m sick of giving up every weekend to prepare for, complete, and recover from long runs. I can’t ever go out at night because I know I have to run in the morning. Twenty-one miles is an absurd distance to run for “fun.” My mom used to do marathons too, and once she told a co-worker that she had run 20 miles over the weekend. His response: “On purpose?!”
It’s going to be so cool to cross that finish line though. I need to do it at least once in my life. I hope that it won’t be so great that I forget how awful the training was and decide I need to do another one. Nope, once will be enough. I will not even come close to qualifying for Boston, so fortunately I don’t need to worry about nearly qualifying and then feeling the need to try again.
Strangely, 21 went far better than 19 did. I completely hit the wall when I did 19, and I barely finished. Yesterday, I felt pretty decent the entire way. Don’t get me wrong, I was in pain, but it wasn’t so unbearable that I couldn’t keep going. I was really worried after the 19-miler that I wasn’t going to be able to do 26.2, but now it seems possible again.
