Runner's World

A cool sanguine breeze blows softly through hair and finger tips. The scenery passes by like frames on a movie reel. Sidewalks lend their backs to punished feet. The pounding of footsteps on concrete makes the only sound that filters through. The only sound that matters. Thump. Thump. Thump. The cadence remains steady, strong and unyielding. Thump. Thump. The pace quickens with each anxious step while muscles grown and stretch under the added strain. Feet can't see the finish line. Thump. A jumble of half-steps quickly decreasing in regularity, dot the pavement. Finally, the sound of footsteps stops altogether and a different sound fills the void. Harsh, raspy breathing, labored and painful, makes a plea for clemency. The lungs will find respite in time.

A man stands alone on an empty sidewalk, hands on his knees and sweat dripping from his brow. He wants to sit but knows he should stay standing. His body sways beneath his loosely fitting, diversely shaded t-shirt. His red flustered face is etched with the lines of a difficult task. His feet burn like he was standing on the hot coals of a tribal initiation rite. Bathed in fire, he stands, righting himself to become parallel with the trees surrounding him. He turns and wills stationary legs to simple movement in the direction of home. He will find respite in time.


And that day is today my friends. My one day off from my new adventure in under achievement. As you made have guessed by the intro, I'm running. And not just running for the sake of running. I'm running because as of Monday, I'm participating in a marathon. To be more specific, the Marine Corp Marathon in Arlington, VA. Sign-ups don't open till may but that doesn't mean I can't start training now. I'm not getting any younger you know. The marathon runs at the end of October and if I'm going to do it, I want to be well prepared. That gives me six months to train, which is what I was hoping for. Even still, with proper training it's not going to be easy.

I'm hoping that by announcing I'm going to run the marathon, it'll be a little extra motivation to actually stick with it. No one likes to be made a liar, except for people who enjoy lying. I'm not one of those people. Nope. I'm just the president of Nepal. Hopefully, this post is the cherry on top of the guilt sunday forcing me to stick with my goal and honor my word. So, please, question me about my progress. One, because I like to tell people and talk about it. But most importantly, to keep me accountable.

I'm thinking about doing weekly updates on my progress. I'm not sure if anyone who reads this, all one of you, would care, but it's something to write about and you're just trying to break the monotony of the work day anyway. Plus, it can't be worse than any of the other shit I write, right?

So, I'll give you the update for this week, since training started on Monday. First off, let me say that I'm fucking tired. My legs are screaming every time I ask them to return blood to my heart, much less take a step. There's this constant ache going on down there that I haven't felt since High School. Running four day in a row just about killed me. I can't remember the last time I did that or felt my legs. So far, the mileage total for the week is sitting at 7.75, not counting cross training on Monday, with another 3 to go tomorrow. The program I'm sticking with is setup by weeks, with Sunday being the long run day and each weekday running a short distance run of 3 to 6 miles or having an off day. I skipped the Sunday run this past week because I didn't want to start training with a 6 mile run. Who wants to run 6 miles right off the bat? No one, that's who. However, I will have to run a 6 miler this coming Sunday and I'm not looking forward to it.

The biggest discouragement so far came today, my one day off this week. I decided to take a break from work and map out some of my running routes online. I found a couple of good websites, the best one being walkjogrun.net. A cool website with satellite images and maps from Google that'll calculate your exact mileage on a given course if you uses enough way-points. The site will be even cooler once you can save your route to a personal account. The disappointing thing was that I was estimating my routes to be longer than they actually are. My normal 3 mile loop was more like 2.5 miles and my previous long run loop, which I thought was around 8 miles, is actually closer to 5. I'll have to run that loop on a weekday in a couple weeks. Not to mention a mammoth loop that I've never ran but always considered to be my Everest is only 5 miles long. Five measly miles, I couldn't believe. I seems a lot longer when you're driving it. I'm going to have to run that loop with a mile added on somewhere to meet my Sunday requirement in two days. Seems pretty daunting. I'm not even going to try to kid myself into thinking Sunday's run is going to be fun. By mid-June I'm going to be doing that loop twice and that's just the start of the ramp up to the race. I can't even imagine right now.

I've got to try not to think about things too much, as it's depressing. Once this get easier, if that ever happens, I'll let myself look ahead but for now I need to keep my vision on the clear and present. 26.2 miles seems like a long time and distance away but I have to start reeling it in now. Wish me luck and I'll let you know how Sunday and next week go, next week.