Motivation

Yesterday it happened.  A buzz on my phone, a quick check of the text's content, and WHAM-O!  I'm looking at which marathon I should do next.  All it took was my buddy saying he had started training for his first and, like a mother who's struck with baby fever, I forget about all the crud I endured last time and start looking forward to the finish line!

For those of you who have never run a marathon, are considering one for the first time, or would refuse to consider running one... I recently wore your shoes (sounds like a lot of shoes, right?!).  As of April 2009, I hadn't run further than from the sofa to the fridge, and that was to make it there and back in the commercial break!  I had run a little in college just to be able to maintain a healthy appearance for the ladies, many would argue that it didn't work.  But competitive running had no appeal to me, I saw nothing great about heading any amount of distance.

Enter one silly movie, two friends who trained with me, and a lot of help.  That's how I started planning how I would take on my first 26.2 miles near Orlando, FL with the Disney Marathon 01/10/10.  Simply put: it was great, horrible, inspiring, grueling, and if all else fails cold!  The race started early and with the thermometers reading 26 degrees (see photo).

Random fun running fact: the colder it is, the less your body has to fight heating up, thus giving your body more energy to take care of other things.  Like moving your legs.

Equally random fun Ryan fact: I picked a race in Florida, in January, thinking it wouldn't be too bad weather-wise. This is why I don't advocate strongly for advanced planning.

The race was technically my second race.  My first was a local 5k put on by a nearby high school to raise funds for their wrestling and baseball team (how those two ended up going in on the race I'll never understand!).  I finished right at 24 minutes.  For perspective, a 5k translates loosely into 3.1 miles, which is between a 1/8 and a 1/9 of the distance of a marathon.

I followed the prescribed advice of Runner's World magazine's SmartCoach training.  To make use of this easy and free tool go to runnersworld.com, select training at the navigation bar near the top of the page, click on the little gray box with green letters spelling SmartCoach.  A head's up: they want your email address and little else, I haven't been plagued with spam, I doubt you will.  In following the schedule I made a 4:20 (4 hours, 20 minutes) time!  In doing so, I finished the race (a goal in itself!) ahead of my predicted time of 4:30, but didn't hit my dream time of 4 flat.

So why go again?  Simple, when I know I can do better, I want to.  Next question: why do I think I can do better?

In September I took on a 1/2 marathon in Asheville, NC.  A slight misread (and brain malfunction) had me expecting a MUCH easier course than what I encountered.  I had a goal in mind of 1:40.  I finished 1:55.  The extra 15 minutes on those hills (small mountains it seemed) was a price I both felt and feel is fair.  With the 1/2 marathon time in place, I went to look at the free (noticing a trend here for the tools I like?) running calculator found at mcmillianrunning.com I'm projected a 3:48-3:52 finish.  There's that sub-4 hour race time again.

I'm fully aware that it's the time of year again where everyone else is thinking about presents, shopping, traveling, and the Great One in a manger.  I've shared some thoughts on that in a previous post (here), but let me throw yet another thought on the pile: what if you started thinking now about your resolution for improvement now.  This would be a gift you'd give the rest of the world that might very well take a full year to be fully wrapped and delivered.  You could be selfless: run to improve your health so others get to enjoy you longer.  If it fits you better, you could be selfish: run to improve your health so you get to annoy others longer.  Just saying, there are worse things.

Whatever your motivation, start considering now what goals you'd like to have in place to make your life and others' lives more wonderful.  What would you like to do that seems impossible this year?  If you need a source of real inspiration you could always try one of my favorites: here.

Keep up with me and keep me updated on you.  Feel free to ask questions, post advice, and log your victories alongside my own.  I can't promise accountability, but I will celebrate your joys and weep with you in the tough times.

Merry Christmas and happy running!