It's a marathon, not a sprint

I have to keep telling myself this.  As I'm getting into my higher mileage runs, I am noticing myself just wanting to get it over with in the beginning.  Once I get into it about 45 minutes, I settle down and just put it on cruise control.  It's actually been very peaceful and gives me time to think about all kinds of stuff.  I'm also noticing that I'm wearing down a lot quicker than I did the last time I trained for a marathon.  It's not been that hard to squeeze in the workouts...at least not as hard as I thought it would be.  What IS harder is the recovery.  Last time, I could go run my workouts or do my cross training exercises and come home and veg out on the couch with my supper and some TV or reading.  Now it's go to work, workout, come home and go go go.  Toddlers make this hard!

I'm so determined to do this though.  After running my last marathon in 2009, I knew immediately, despite the pain, that I wanted to run another one.  This was mostly because, while just finishing my first 26.2 was a goal, I wanted to finish sub 4:00.  Well....I ran it in 4:02.

Most people would say this was a good time for my first marathon, especially a hilly race like Nashville.  I still wanted to do that.  I was planning on running it the next year, but then found out I was pregnant in February.  I didn't think it would be smart to attempt training for a marathon during the first months of my first pregnancy.  So I pushed it back.

2011 came and I still knew I didn't have the motivation or dedication level I needed to train for 26.2.  I knew I could probably half-ass train for the half-marathon, but I also didn't want to settle (and the half costs almost as much as the full).

So here we are in 2012.  I thought about it, I prayed about it, I discussed with Neil whether or not we had the time for this.  I knew I needed his support 100% and couldn't do it without him.  It wasn't just because I needed someone to watch Lila, I have family members lining up at my door still waiting to watch her, it was the fact that I knew there would be days I didn't want to go and he would have to kick my butt out the door.  I knew there would be days, just like this past Sunday, when I ran 14 and REALLY felt it.  I need him to continue to encourage me to go out and do this, not tell me, "of course you're hurting, you did this to yourself".  Thankfully, I have an amazing husband who knows that I have a mind that wants to continue to push myself in ways that most would think I am a crazy, psycho path that WANTS to go out and run 26.2 miles and even more so, would pay to do it (except for this year...Thanks Mom for the donation to my marathon).

I also knew that we want to have more children when he gets out of school and that could potentially push running another marathon back 3-5 years even...maybe more.  I didn't want to pass it up this year.

This all being said, I have to say, I don't remember it hurting this bad during training.  I am training hard on hills this time, something I didn't do until the very end in my last training.  I need to continue this, I know, since the race is VERY ELEVATED, (click here for a look at the elevation chart from my 14 miler) but I also don't want to burn myself out or hurt myself.  Thankfully this week is an easy, back it off a little week.  I'm hoping to do some recovering and make next week's long run of 16 miles a good one.  So far my training pace has been close to my race time from last year, but you never know how that will go when you really start packin' on the mileage.  I'm going to try to keep everyone (who cares) updated through this blog, but with being so busy and then the exhaustion, it may not get done every week.  :)

I do have to mention Lila because some of you will get upset if i don't at least say something.  She is now trying to climb up on things and jump off.  If this happens when we're not around, this outcome will not be good.  Heaven help us.