Weekly summary:

Monday – rest
Tuesday – 7 miles base
Wednesday – 4 miles easy
Thursday – Friday – missed runs
Saturday – 3 miles easy
Sunday – missed run
Total Miles: 14

Weekly Summary:

Monday – rest
Tuesday – 5 miles base
Wednesday – 3 miles easy
Thursday – 6 miles base
Friday – rest (did a lot of walking that day though)
Saturday – 4 miles (Bloomin’ 4 mile race)
Sunday – 9 miles base
Total Miles: 27

Weekly Summary:

Monday – cross training (arms, back, abs)
Tuesday – 5 miles base
Wednesday – 3 miles easy run
Thursday – 5 miles base
Friday – rest
Saturday – 3 miles easy run
Sunday – 8 miles base
Total mileage: 24

This Wednesday, I went to the orientation meeting for RunOn early marathon/15K training program, and my main takeaway from that meeting was “This training season is definitely going to be very different from what I am used to.” Even the orientation itself was like nothing I would have expected at DRC. An orientation at DRC is like a first day of school. Everyone is there – the place is completely packed. You have your freshmen (first timers) who are sorta looking shell-shocked and are hanging on to every word the principal (that would be Vishal) says. You have your sophomores (the returning runners), who have already done this once and know the drill, and are coming back for another round. You have your juniors (those who have done the training before and are moving on to the next level) – those guys have done their half training, and are getting ready to take on their first full marathon training season. So, there is this feeling of familiarity and comfort, yet a whole new level of excitement and slight apprehension because you are about to joing ”the cool kids” club. And then there are seniors – those are the guys that have done marathon training before, kicked that marathon’s butt, and came back to do it again. Everyone is excited; you see a lot of old friends; you high-five each other, ask about latest races that people have done, and tell your own “battle stories”. All the pace leaders are lined up along the walls like proud teachers, and you can come up to them and chat and get a feel for what they are like. Well, RunOn orientation was nothing like that. 

One year ago today RunawayNotes was born! It was fun to go through my old posts today to see how far I have come since then. In many ways, things are very different now.  Back then, I have made a decision to train for and run a full marathon. At that time, I was very uncertain in my own abilities. I wasn’t sure if my body would be strong enough physically (I was dealing with an injury), and I also wasn’t sure if I was tough enough mentally to go through the whole ordeal. And now I know that my body is a lot stronger than I gave it credit for, and I am way tougher than I ever believed myself to me. I have grown so much as a runner over the past 12 months. I have reached so many milestones. It has been one truly amazing year. 

Two hours and 27 minutes of anguish, frustration, and anger. Tens of thousands of people trying to reach a common goal, failing over and over again. Every now and then, you get a glimmer of hope that the end to this misery is near, but another few moments pass, and you realize that you are as far away from that precious prize as you were an hour ago. Your loved ones are cheering you on. “Keep on trying! We believe in you!” Those lucky few who have gone before you and succeeded also share words of encouragement “Do not give up! It’s not over yet!” You think you’ve hit the wall. You don’t have the mental fortitude to keep going. You are ready to give up. But then that little voice just whispers in your ear “Come on! One more try!” And you click your mouse, and just like that, miraculously, you are registered for Marine Corps Marathon 2013! 

Well, even though technically I still have about another month of this training season left, I can officially say that this has been a successful season. I won’t lie – it sure hasn’t felt like one up until today. I’ve had issues with my motivation. I’ve struggled with speedwork. I have probably had more runs that I didn’t enjoy than the ones I did. This was my first training season (in 3.5 years) when I started asking myself why do I keep doing this when it seems I am simply not enjoying running anymore. Well, I got the answer to this question today, when I crossed that finish line and nearly burst into tears when I realized that my Garmin was showing 2:05:25 – I have improved my personal best by almost 9 minutes! At that moment, I realized that I would go through another season of grueling hill work, miserable speed training, and exhausting long runs just to experience this feeling of pure joy, and pride, and “Hell yeah! I just kicked some butt” again.

I have almost certainly had worse runs than the one this morning. I just can’t think of any right now. Oh my God! This run SUCKED! And it was ironic (in the Alanis Morissette sense of the word) for two reasons. One, the last couple of weeks have been actually pretty good. I did Trinity Levee 10K in 55:45. I allowed myself to fall back from 2:00 pace group to 2:05 group on Tuesday nights when we do our speed work, and that has made a huge difference as well. I was back to feeling good about running. And two, I don’t remember ever hitting the wall during my marathon. But I sure hit one today.

If you are a runner and you have a Facebook account, chances are your news feed is flooded with all sorts of running memes. Some of them are funny, some of them are cheesy, some of them are plain stupid, and some are surprisingly true. There is one that has always resonated with me. There are multiple photos floating around the internet, but the caption is the same “Your mind will quit a thousand times before your body does”. It has always been amazing to me how true this saying is. I mean, why is it that when you’re going out for a 15 mile run, the first 8 miles just fly by, and you don’t even start thinking about the fact that you are getting tired till mile 12-13. However, if you’ve decided to do just 10 miles, by mile 8 you feel like you are going to die.

March 24th, here I come