What Comes Around

On Friday, a friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a book, The Nonrunner's Marathon Guide for Women.  After reading through the snippets available for preview on Amazon, I can say that it looks like a pretty funny read.  I can definitely see where a sense of humor would help you go the distance when your muscles were struggling. 

At any rate, it got me thinking again on running a marathon.  After reading a few of the reviews of this book, I started looking at marathon training schedules as several of the reviewers seemed to voice concern over the very idea of tackling such a task as a marathon with a mere four months of training.  I started by looking at Hal Higdon's plans.  After looking at some other plans in the course of surfing, I checked out the website for the Walt Disney World Marathon.  As part of the site, they include a couple of training plans and in at least one of the plans, they mention running at a 16:00 minute/mile pace.  I couldn't help but scoff.  I mean I typically WALK fast than that.  I felt smug - I mean if I take on a marathon...  I'm gonna take it on.  It's not gonna take me.... Right?

Well if my long run on Saturday was any indication...  the sport is quite capable of putting me in my place.  We ventured to try out our new jogging stroller and I was excited that it was just cold enough to try on my new tights.  My hubby selected a new route to try, too.  He took the stroller from the start as we were going to be tackling some hills.  I ran the first mile and a half with wild abandon - on the winding path shaded by trees up and down the rolling hills.  Then, I found myself struggling for the next mile or so.  It was all I could do to walk - my heart was pounding out of my chest.  I tried to take the stroller for a bit to add a bit of a challenge to my walk, but my chest muscles were shrieking.  I did manage a jog for the last little bit, but my overall pace was about 2:30 off my typical one.  Completely dejected, I would have normally sentenced myself to some make-up time on the treadmill, but I figured I might make up for it the next day after lunch after my mom issued a challenge to see how long it would take for us to run 4 laps around their neighborhood.

Let me just say....  having two cups of coffee and a big meal without a reasonable amount of water...  is not the best prelude to a run in the sun.  We managed two laps before we decided to call it for the day.  The overall pace was a little better than Saturday, but it was still off.  I wasn't the master of the run...  just a humbled participant of the sport.

With a better understanding of my place, I took to the road once again this morning.  Needless to really say... MUCH better run.

On a brighter note, I was glad to see the Preds play this past Saturday.  Hockey season is such a LONG one, so a loss here and there doesn't spell the end of your season (unlike say college football - or at least they like to pretend that a loss in CF is just that), but it was nice to see the Preds win their first game.  Will be interested to see how things go against the Blackhawks in the next game.