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Monday, October 22, 2012

4 bridges 1/2 marathon


The past year or so has been personally horrible for me. I mean it's really stunk. On par with 1992 for Queen Elizabeth
 
 
Personal malaise has ensued.
 
One of the things that has suffered this year has been my level of fitness.  For the past decade I've been a pretty avid, if not particularly good, runner. I barely ran at all in 2012 (through about mid August), and gained 10 or so pounds.  The last time I ran a race was in November of last year.
 
So, on to October of 2012.  I had been doing sporadic and unfocused running (a 10 miler one week followed by a 2 miler, then nothing for another week, for example), and had registered for a couple of fall races - the first was this past Sunday's 4 Bridges Half-Marathon in Chattanooga. I came very close over the last week or so to bailing on the race, as I was very much undertrained.  Ultimately though, I decided that I had to start back somewhere and so I toed the line.

I won't bore you with the details.  It was pretty ugly.  Not Mayan calendar ugly, but ugly nonetheless. I did beat my publicly stated, "I'll be lucky to break this time", goal, but not by very much.

BUT, the most important thing is that I "ran" the race, collected the medal and remembered why I enjoy running races so much. I'm not competitive, but I do enjoy the competition - if that makes sense. I also have a new, slow, benchmark to start with.

On to the future.  I am registered for the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon on November 10 (the site of my first marathon), but I will probably drop down to the half-marathon as there is no way I would be in shape to not embarrass myself.

And then big things for 2013.  Stay tuned.  I know you can't wait.

1 comment:

  1. keep it up!
    this is for your inspiration:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28KobNbbI2s

    ReplyDelete