In the Fall of 2018, I ran three marathons in three months. The fun kicked off in September, when I ran one on the treadmill to celebrate my birthday. Then in October I ran one at the end of an Ironman in Kona, HI. Finally, in November, I ran one with 50,000 other runners through the five boroughs of New York City. In 2019, I barely scraped together finishing one marathon, which is to say I covered 26.2 miles at the end of Ironman Wisconsin, but I didn’t run the entire race, so can I even say I ran a marathon in 2019?
On Monday, January 20th, I completed a run workout that included paces I want to hit for my next marathon. I felt good, relaxed, and confident that I was in a solid place in my training that I could build on. I wasn’t ready to race yet, with over six weeks until the start, I didn’t need to be, but I was ready to sink my teeth into a challenging block of training leading into my first stand alone marathon in over a year, my home turf race, the LA Marathon.
The following day, I twisted my ankle.
The day after that, the pain and swelling started to fade, but I wasn’t ready to run. The day after that, (stay with me), I fell into a week long hole of digestive distress that left me depleted of any energy to run more than thirteen minutes, let alone any sort of marathon-type training workout. However, after that week was up, my bod started turning around, and when I was asked to run forty-five minutes, I did.
And I felt great doing it.
A few days later I was tasked to run fifteen miles.
Wonderful! My wonky right foot was ready to go with the middle hammer toe braced down with kinesio tape, (its new normal), while my left ankle slightly hummed from the trail twist, and was still a little blue to the naked eye, she never blinked, and held strong the whole way.
I was back on track.
In fact, after enduring the previous two weeks of turmoil, I was amazed and proud of how my body healed, and I let her live a little by bending a rule near the end of the run, picking up my pace faster than prescribed for the fifteenth mile.
It simply felt so good to finally feel so good.
Marathon #1, Rock n' Roll San Diego, June 3rd, 2001. Screen left, my brother, Peter.
A major touchstone in my life was when I ran my first marathon on June 3rd, 2001.
Everything changed after that.
What I thought was an experiment, a single “dare,” instead tapped into a well inside me I never knew was there, and didn't truly explore until I ran my next marathon, the original LA Marathon route in March, 2003. That was it. I knew that day that I was a marathoner for life.
I didn’t think I was great at it. I wasn’t. But, I believed that I could be, and if I knew what to do, that I would be, some day.
There are less than five weeks until my next marathon, #54 falls on Sunday, March 8th, and the next four weeks include the most challenging/nuttiest training I have ever been assigned, exactly what I’ve asked for, and I can’t wait to get going.
Although, I’m not sure how much I will share here between now and then? Honestly, part of me wants to retreat and keep this next chapter to myself, I might be too exhausted to write every Tuesday anyway? Then again, I’m sure I’ll leak out bits and pieces along the way, because when you love something as much as I love the marathon, the chance to train for it, run it, and maybe even race it well, you want to share that passion with the rest of the world, not just so they can understand it, but so they can love it, too.
Lets GO!
The song choice this week, is one I rediscovered recently, my favorite tune from the late Chris Cornell, Scream.