Glad to see you are feeling somewhat better this morning.
I thought I would share a little of my running journey. I hope that’s okay.
I’m single, and I don’t have kids (but I do have a dog).
New job, New city. I needed to find something to be active. I loved to hike, but really nowhere to do that where I live now. I would do a couple classes at the gym, but never really committed and stuck with anything. I would do workout videos at home sometimes. But nothing really stuck.
I had a friend who had just ran a half marathon, so I thought I might try that. I used to hate running. I would try and run and stop because I hated it. When I learned that I needed to slow my pace down is when I started to be okay with it.
I signed up for a local store’s half marathon training program, and I mostly followed the plan. This was for a fall 2014 half. I made it through a couple halves that fall, and thought that I could continue doing this.
Before or even right after running these first two half marathons, I thought running a marathon would be impossible. No way would I want to or could I do that. But my local race series had a spring to fall back to back challenge, with special pricing right up until new year’s, and on a whim, I signed up for the half to full challenge!! What was I thinking! (Oh, and I signed up for the Dopey Challenge before running that first marathon!?!?)
I was able to sign up for the Disney Half in 2015, when they did the Goofy gives back. I slacked on my training that fall, and it ended up being a pretty painful half marathon, but I loved it! How can you not love running your first Disney Run?? Lesson learned for me, though - don’t slack on training.
After running my first marathon (fall 2015), I never looked back. It’s the distance I like, I think because it provides a challenge. Something that I have to work for, and feel pretty accomplished afterwards.
I would have definitely considered myself a casual runner. I was never going to win anything. I followed a training plan, but didn’t really put in extra effort. I ran with my training group, and just enjoyed running with them. It wasn’t until really this past Dopey Challenge, when I asked Billy to write a plan for me that I really started wanting to improve my time. For the most part I ran races just enjoying them - running a good pace, but nothing overly challenging. Training was a social activity.
This past training session has been a little harder since I’ve only been running one run a week with my training group. I can definitely understand just wanting to go home and do nothing. That sounds really good sometimes (a lot of times??). But I know what I want my end goal to be, which is why I keep running. The feeling at the end of a marathon for me is great.
If you want to run a marathon, you will find a way to make a training plan work for you. If you never want to run a marathon, that’s okay to. Just be happy with what you want to do. Only you can decide what works for you. And if you only want to dedicate a certain amount of time to running, great! If you decide you want to dedicate a little more time each week, great! You do you, and don’t let anyone else’s training, negatively affect you.
I really enjoy reading your training journal - so I hope you keep it up.
That was really long - SORRY!!
and if you need a tissue I'll try and smoosh one through the computer screen to you. I'll owe you a cup of coffee if you decide to run in January.
And when you turn 21, the possibilities are endless. 
) mugs! Woohoo!!
