To marathon or not to marathon?
I have kind of a tough decision to make. J, one of the runners I see in the locker room every morning, is going to start training for the Chicago marathon. She’s enlisted my boss’ boss, L, to train with her, and she was working on convincing another gal, C, in the locker room this morning. After C agreed, I told them I was getting envious because I really want to do it too but I don’t feel ready. J started sort of interviewing me about my running (what’s my base distance, what’s my pace, etc) and pronounced me ready. I talked to L about it, and she agrees with J.
J made a really good point: she said that she looks back and can recall times when she was offered the chance to train with someone who was more advanced than she, and she passed up several of those opportunities. I don’t want to risk injury, yet I know I’ll feel more than a twinge of regret when they come back from Chicago in the fall and they’re all talking about how great or how hard or how exhilarating it was.
I still have to talk it over with Karsten. I hate to give up my morning runs with him, but he’s not interested in training that hard, so if I’m ever going to do it (and it’s one of my life goals), I’m going to have to stop running with him for at least a little while. I’m already pushing for 6 miles every morning instead of 5, and he doesn’t feel ready for that. So maybe our days of running together in the morning are numbered anyway. Who knows.
I’m intrigued by what this will be like, but I don’t know if my body is ready to be pushed this hard.
2 Responses to “To marathon or not to marathon?”
Posted: May 26th, 2004 at 3:23 am
if it’s your dream to do this, maybe it’s time for you to put aside your reservations, hike up your positive attitude and try. you might never know what your body is ready for if you don’t test it.
of course i’m just talking out a hole in my head. i’ve never been in the position to try any of it, obviously. i hope that you find a solution that will make you feel good about what you’re doing.
Posted: May 26th, 2004 at 4:11 am
When Tim was training for the marathon, I would bike with him on the long run days — even though the biking was slow, once we’d gone 10-15 miles, I was still pretty tired
so that’s a possible way you and Karsten could at still enjoy each other’s company on some of your runs.