Preparing to run

I have a huge goal for this year.  It's something that I said I would NEVER do.  And I still have a hard time believing that I'm actually going to try and do it.  I'm going to run a marathon.  Yes, I'm going to run for 26.2 miles.  If that's not insane, I don't know what is.

I started running 4 years ago.  I wanted to be in better shape and thought that running would be a good way to do that.  At first I just wanted to be able to run a 5k.  Gary has been with me the whole way, cheering me on.  The first time I ever ran 5k was the day we ran the Get in Gear 5k in April 2007.  It was difficult.  On that day, Gary said, "Hey, next year we'll run the 10k race."  I told him in no uncertain terms that I was never running anything more than a 5k.  I distinctly remember saying, "A 5k -IS- my marathon."

Fast forward to February 2008 when I said we could run an 8k race and if that went ok, maybe I'd try a 10k race.

And the rest is history.

I said I'd never run a half marathon, that running a 10k would be the longest I ran.  Well, in October 2009, we ran the Twin Cities 10 Mile.  Last summer, I ran not one, but two half marathons.  So, I'm now at the point where I feel like I need to run a marathon to complete the cycle.  It's something that seems impossible to me.  It's a daunting task that scares me to death.  But when I think about where I was four years ago and where I am now, I almost feel like I have already run a mental marathon.

It's not going to be easy.  And it's not going to be happy every day.  I'm going to have days when I absolutely don't want to run.  And I'm going to have moments when I want to quit.  But I've paid my money and anyone who knows me knows that I don't want to waste any money.  So... it looks like I'm running a marathon!