My first marathon - the why, how, and after

Twin Cities Marathon Oct 2003.

I didn't take the traditional route to doing a marathon. The marathon was my first race EVER. Now what was I thinking?!? Who knew there were other races out there. :) We were in the process of buying our first house in Jan. 2003 and our mortgage lady said she ran marathons and I was like I can do that too. So I found a book, "The Non Runners Guide to Marathon Training" and started to train on my own. So I trained using that book and then switched over to Hal Higdon's novice plan in July. I had ups and downs through the training. I kept getting injuries, mainly pains in my feet after a certain distance and needing to back off and start up again.

Needless to say going into the marathon was scary and nerve racking. My longest run to date was a 17 miler and that didn't go so well because my foot hurt. So I even questioned myself if I was going to even run the darn thing. I was so worried I wouldn't finish. It didn't even cross my mind that I wouldn't walk parts of the race because who knew other runners kinda look down on other runners that walk. Silly me, this race was for me and not them.

I can remember standing at the start line as it was yesterday. My heart was beating as fast as it could and my mind kept racing. What the hell was I thinking? What am I doing here? Wow, there are a lot of people that run these things. Will I finish? When is the horn going to blow?

It sounded and there we were off. I felt fine up through 7 miles. Then I kept getting tired. I was so tired at the half and realized I had half more to go. What was I thinking? Can I do this? I trudged on. Mile 19 - Man, I'm stupid, why am I out here, 26.2 miles is a long ways. My feet hurt and my legs are super tired. But all I kept thinking was I can't stop. I need to keep moving forward.

The last 10k is a blur. I can't even reminder how I got through it. At mile 26 and seeing the finish line a big smile came to my face and I ran as fast as I could. That meant I could stop running and rest and get off my feet. My legs, body, and mind were so sore. It took a lot of mental power to get through the last 10k. I didn't have a big emotional meltdown after I crossed the finish line as I was to emotional drained from just finishing a marathon. I was super happy I finished but wished I had done better.

Hey, it was my first and I did enjoy it and look I'm hooked. I've completed a total of 4 and currently training for number 5. But it took awhile. I totally took off running for 3 months since I couldn't think of running anymore. But I decided I wanted to run another one so I started training again in Jan of 2004 for the Grandma's Marathon in June 2004. Running marathons is a gradual process and I learn something new everytime I train and run another one. I don't get as nervous at the start line but I always do question myself during training but in the end I always finish the race even if it's not what I was hoping for.

What you can't reach makes you stronger as you strive to reach it.