After my last race, the Healdsburg Half Marathon in wine county (wine.country.), I still thought I'd never do a full marathon. Then I moved, changed my schedule and lifestyle to a degree that made running regularly difficult. I took a month off to heal up, but lost some of my physical strength, and constantly felt blah. And, I got depressed.
It took me a bit to realize it, but part of why I was down was because I wasn't running! One afternoon I decided to just go for a half hour at a slow pace just to get some blood flowing. I ended up running my first mile in only about 10 minutes, and I came back with a clear head and lots of creative ideas for a story I've been writing for months. In short, I felt good again.
Everything about my experience running - the zen-like focus, building up of physical and mental strength run after run, the joy of being alone and doing basically nothing and everything - came back to me. I needed a race to work up to. When I discovered in April that the Portland marathon was in October, I realized it was a sign of something.
So, I signed up. I hand wrote calendars of training schedules. And, I felt really good again.
Tomorrow is my first official marathon-training run. It's only six miles (which is easy to moderate for me), but I'm thrilled that it's a part of yet another running journey for me. A freaking marathon?
In May I eased into my training with light runs, lots of yoga, and resistance training. This picture above is from my last run and it was taken from the top of the highest steps at Mount Tabor in Portland, about two miles from my apartment. Since I don't have access to an elliptical, I'm trying to build up my legs and butt with stairs like the ones at Mount Tabor. It's hard, but the view is all worth it.
I want to try to share a picture for each week of training and hopefully share it here! Maybe I'll have something insightful, maybe not. But, here we go.
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