I'm really glad
Well I’ll be damned. Only one month left until the Little Rock Marathon, and I’m sitting here on a Friday night going over my running schedule for the next 30 days. I’m starting to get a little nervous, but I keep reminding myself that I’ve been running since I was 14. That’s helping. A little.
I’ll tell you what’s not helping. Reading running blogs is absolutely not helping. I feel like they’re all too competitive. PR this and PR that. I’m just over here like, “I ran a half on my 26th birthday…and I thought it was really fun. Yey!”
I am so not the competitive type. A hilarious fact given the fact that I married a man who half jokingly asked if he could, “win something” at a yoga session. It’s not that I don’t care about doing well at things, I do care. Just not about a perfect 4.0 or a significant mile time. Meh. I DO enjoy the journey though. Gaining new experiences that help earn my graduate degree or completing a long training period to finish a big race…those are the things that I care about.
Races aren’t something I blog about often either. It’s not because I don’t like talking about it…quite the opposite. I love gabbing about it with folks who love running too! However, answering questions about my personal mile times, goals for races, blah, blah, blah on my blog, disgruntles me. Not the competitive type…see paragraph above. I could care less about how fast I want to finish a marathon, I just want to finish. Answering those questions makes me feel like I’m not fast enough or good enough, which is a total load of crap, but that’s how I feel. It also takes the fun out of running for me because I feel like I have to compete. Boo. No thank you.
What I WILL share are my many “feels” about running 26.2 miles 🙂
1. I hope I don’t f-ing die.
2. I’m afraid my GU will all of the sudden explode out of the pack.
3. I hope I finish.
4. I hope my husband will be able to be there with Darwin.
5. Secretly, I want it to snow a little. Not a lot to jack up the whole city like what happened last year, but some flurries would make me feel like I’m running in Wisconsin. That would make me ridiculously happy and nostalgic.
6. Race photographers…you guys are pretty cool. If I look stupid, I don’t care. Snap my picture in all of my derpy glory. The Soaring Wings Half photographers did a fabulous job of that, haha.
7. I’m running this because it’s 26 miles and I’m 26. I can’t have a re-do next year, because I won’t be 26. Makes perfect sense, right?
8. Running with a bunch of strangers doesn’t wig me out, but if anyone tries to talk to me, (headphones are shoved so deeply in my ears it’s dangerous for my hearing and safety) I get this look on my face like they’ve just murdered someone. I talk so much. All. The. Time. When I run, my mouth shuts up and my thoughts work themselves out. I love you talky running people, but not when you want to talk to ME. Please don’t hate me.
9. The beepers on GPS watches. Oh my God. I want to run them over with my car. Hence the headphones jammed into my skull.
10. Rather than walking, I will run as slowly as humanly possible. The second I stop running, I’m doomed to not run. My muscles get cold. Slow jog is better than no jog! I’m 100% positive a gym teacher in said that to my class in high school.
There you have it kids, a bunch of thoughts about running my very first marathon! Man, that felt good to get out of my system. I’ve been holding onto that for a few months now. I’m so pumped to run the Little Rock Marathon in March. There’s thousands of people who are joining in on this crazy ride. After we cross the finish line, I will totally talk to the talky runners and stop judging the beepy GPS people. I promise 🙂
