In September, while I was vacationing at Hilton Head Island, I rather casually posted as my Facebook status, “Running half marathon tomorrow.” What I intended at the time was that I would be running 13.1 miles the following day. It would have been a nice way to finish off a week of excellent runs. However, I came up short. Basically, my intention was to park my car, run 5 miles north along the beach to a river inlet. I would then turn around, run past my starting point by approximately 1.55 miles, and then return. Not exactly a classic “out and back,” but close enough. However, in the execution, I was unwilling to run past my car. The 13.1 miles was truncated to a 10-mile run.
It was only days later that I decided to run a marathon. It became clearer to me on that trip that I needed to set some sort of goal for myself. What was I running for? Did I want to get faster? Did I want to be able to run longer? How should I measure progress? The answer to these questions was that I wanted to complete a marathon, the benchmark distance run. I wasn’t particularly interested in developing speed -- at least not initially. First things first: finish a marathon. Train for it & do it.
In retrospect, much of my running journey so far was presaged during that trip. Why was I unable to finish my 13.1 mile run at the beach? I would say that there were four factors to my early termination. First, by the time I got back to the 10-mile mark, I sincerely sought to use a restroom. To run right past a well-situated facility would have been exceptionally difficult. This fed in to the second factor: it was quite convenient to stop. If my run had been 6.55 out and back, I would have had little choice but to complete the run in some manner once I had committed to the first leg. In my case, especially after using the bathroom, it would have been akin to starting a second run.
Third, since I was running by myself, I didn’t have any of the good peer pressure to keep me going. Running in a pack helps you to press on.
But it was really factor number four that got me to head back: I was short-changing my family. The night before my run was a particularly difficult one. I don’t exactly remember which kid was keeping us up all night, but I know one of them was. While I was gone, Julie would have to take care of both kids while being already exhausted herself. Further, as I recall, she didn’t look to hide her irritation with me. As with several other times that week, I was off to do my own thing, leaving her very little choice as to how to spend her time. To make matters worse, this was the longest run of the week, and I wasn’t even starting at the house, so there was travel time to add to time I would be away. This was, after all, her vacation, too. Why shouldn’t she be a bit ticked off at me? I guess I had never previously seen my exercising as being at some cost to anyone other than myself. Surely, Julie and I hadn’t discussed the sacrifice yet at that point.
I haven’t endeavored a run that long since then. And I’ve learned that running involves the whole family, in one way or another.
Still, I set out to run a half marathon on a whim, and it was on just such a whim that I signed up for the YMCA of Greenville Resolution Run to take place on the 7th of January. My schedule doesn’t have me running a half marathon for another two-and-a-half months. And indeed, the half marathon is not a distance that particularly interests me. From what I’ve been able to glean from websites and books, it’s largely a creation of the nomenclature itself (and a recent one at that). Which sounds more noteworthy: running a “25k,” or running a “half marathon”? The very word “marathon” attached to something makes it sound more impressive. Of course, of the two I mention, the 25k is the longer run.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the chance to push myself a bit. I don’t expect to do any better than about 2:40 or more. I don’t intend to give it my all, since it really is just a whim. However, it will be a chance to test my endurance, which is, ostensibly, my running goal.
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