Revelations of the Run

It came to me during my 12-mile slog-fest Saturday and I couldn't help but exclaim, out loud to my running partner, "Marathons are a really stupid idea."

Her response, "YA, I'VE BEEN TELLING YOU THAT FOR YEARS."

But, crazy as she thinks I might be she hung in there with me for six miles of running and then biked along beside me for the return trip. Somewhere toward the middle of mile eleven she even busted out with the Rocky theme. Though at that point not much was helping. I was in the pain cave for sure. And the thought of adding 14.2 more miles onto that run felt overwhelmingly unattainable.

Every single run this week was a battle for me. I can come up with a list of reasons....too early, too late, too fast, under-fueled, over-fueled, dehydrated. Whatever. Its all a bunch of excuses. The truth is that THIS IS RUNNING. There are going to be good days, and there are going to be challenging days. But you aren't going to learn anything about yourself, or push through any boundaries without it getting a little tough. If running a marathon was easy, what would be the point?

So I had a little chat with myself, I said its time to suck it up and attack this challenge. This is running. This is you figuring out what you're made of. This is you living up to the challenge that you threw down for yourself.

This is you preparing to run from the statue of liberty to central park. How lucky are you? How lucky are you to be able to run? To be able to spend time training? To be able to pick your challenges rather than have life choose them for you? To have friends and family supporting you along the way (even if they think you're a little nuts)?

You are too lucky to be whining about bad running days.

So this is me, running.