Yeah, I did just do that, what was I thinking?

You know, I was tripping along quite happily yesterday. Life was good, training has been training, I have been following my plan and happy. Then someone asks me to join the Marathon Training Team with her. I was like no, really I couldn't, easier then refusing seconds on desert. So why then am I going to be at Sports Backers Stadium, bright and early Sunday morning with a 7.3 mile warm up training session run in front of me?? Why am I doing this again? Well if the person who asked me was someone else, I probably would still be tripping along happily with no marathon in my future. But I like her loads, and her boyfriend is a great training partner for Brad, and they like doing crazy races together, so I figured why not? Why not indeed, why....

Oh right, I'm stupid....Running a marathon is definitely not like having a baby. I remember the pain from the NYC Marathon VIVIDLY!! It's not like I've forgotten that feeling of my hips and legs may never feel the same again. But wait a minute, that marathon I ran, I only trained for from August until October. When I asked my running friend Brenda, who incidentally is a running coach, to whip me up a training plan I now understand why she looked at me like I had an extra eyeball. Three months to train for a marathon, another hash mark goes in the I'm Stupid column. But she did make a plan, I did train for those three months and I did finish a marathon, and managed to do it in under 5 hours so I could get my name in the NY Times. Hmmm, maybe not THAT stupid, but stupid none the less.

Let me explain that there is nothing suckier then marathon long run training sessions in Richmond heat. 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24 miles of nothing but running, sweating and wishing it was over already. I am not one of those Zen runners. I do not find my inner peace on long runs. Actually my husband teases me and tells me my endorphins sort of rot and go bad so instead of a runners high, I highly want to punch the person standing closest to me. But maybe if I have all of this time in front of me, two extra months of training it will be make a difference. I started the training team last year and had to drop out in August when I started taking my blood pressure medicine. I had a hard time adjusting, but I am used to what I take now, I know how I need to super hydrate when I train in the heat.

Did I mention I hate running? Long or short distance, I just hate it, and here I am faced with running 26.2 miles. So off I go, head long into my next race adventure.

Of course it will make great fodder for my blog mill. Maybe that's it, the frustrated writer in me needed more material for this blog so I decided to do something stupid like a marathon. Surely I could have found another muse...