On Sunday morning I ran for two hours. That is an impressive feat for anyone, runner or not, but what made that run special was that it felt just like any other first long run for a marathon prep, not great, my legs were stiff, and eyelids were heavy, (I had a heaping week of Ironman training preceding it, nothing super nutty, but more than I had done in a while), so it was fitting I was dragging by Sunday morning, but I was up early and running in the double digits, and that is a fantastic feeling.
My legs creaked, but still loved every second of their hilly sojourn in the north valley of Los Angeles. In fact, they even shot me a few flowing strides every once in a while to let me know they were with me. My feet showed up for the fun, too. They were enjoying their first comfy ride in their newly broken-in orthotics, while I relaxed my mind and soaked it all in, aware there was work to do, but grateful to be back to my normal Sunday morning activity, running long.
It was not the run I want to run on September 8th, (Ironman Wisconsin), or on November 3rd, (NYC), but I was fine running that way on August 11th. I have faith in muscle memory, and if there is one thing my muscles know how to do, its run for 26.2 miles.
This was my first foray into the ultra distance, the ray Miller 50K in 2015.
There were a couple of weeks in July when I thought 2019 would be the first year since 2002, that I would not run a marathon; a reality that absolutely gutted me. I don’t know exactly when, why, or how I fell so hard for the marathon? I had been a runner for years already, and certainly was not a natural at the distance, I clocked a 4:24 my first time out, (decent, but nothing special), and I didn’t even really like it.
It hurt.
A lot.
But the marathon was what I reached out for during the toughest years of my life, and instead of beating me down, which it easily could have done, it rooted me on, and held me up when I started to collapse. We became sparring partners, rather than adversaries; it pointed out my weaknesses, but only in order to encourage me to improve, to try again, and I did.
Again.
And again.
I kept running and racing, running fifty one marathons between 2003 and 2018, and after #24, I started running faster, (dipping under the elusive 3:30 mark), and feeling better, (consistently running 3:20-3:25 for over a dozen races). It still hurt, but I decided when to hurt, and how much, having faith the marathon would always provide a place for me to test, and become my best.
The Basel marathon, 2014, my 36th marathon, and my first win.
It was both a shock and felt completely normal to break the 3:10 barrier last November in New York, because I had never had more fun or worked as hard running a marathon than on that gorgeous Fall day.
The NYC marathon, 2018, marathon #52.
That is why my two hour run on Sunday felt so good, even while encrusted in gaining fitness soreness, I finally let myself believe that it was leading me to another marathon, hopefully two, this year. (Or, if my coach gets an itch to assign me another treadmill marathon before 2020, I’d be up for that, too.)
Let’s GO!
The song choice this week goes out to my sister Mary, who is celebrating her birthday on Friday, the 16th. Here is the Aerosmith classic, and the greatest video of the ‘90’s,Cryin’.