November 1 Looking Back, Looking Forward

"I heard you talking about running a half marathon yesterday."

"Yeah. What do you think?"

"I think it's stupid."

My wife, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm still like 50/50 whether I tell people that I registered for the half marathon or not. For example, when I saw my pastor at the Halloween party last night and we started talking about weight loss (naturally, since I haven't gone to church lately so he noticed and commented, "Looks like you're slimming down"...) I told him that I registered for the 10k Turkey Trot and the 10k Rock n' Roll, but I didn't mention the Phoenix Half Marathon. But by the end of the night a guy in his Tough Mudder shirt and his wife had overheard me talking about it and decided to share their war stories.

"I did a half marathon once. I don't know about your experience with gels, but don't do new nutrition the day of the race, ugh," said the wife.

"Yeah, I didn't really train for mine, and I nearly passed out at mile 8 and had to walk the rest. It was hot and awful," said the husband.

So I guess you can say I've been feeling a little discouraged. More accurately, I'm terrified.

Four months ago today, July 1, I weighed 286.5 lbs. Today, I'm down 43.1 lbs and I have gone about 5 miles without stopping. I'd say that's a pretty good 4 month improvement. Four months from today, March 1, will be the day after I run 13.1 miles, however long it takes me. Maybe I'll be down 10 lbs, maybe another 43.1, who knows. To me, ultimately, I have to trust that if I put the miles in and stay on my nutrition, I will be fine.

So this morning, I did three "easy" miles.

I tried a new path today. It felt like the whole thing was uphill! I love how my pacing was awesome for the first two, and then you can see how the elevation increase just killed it for me. I was supposed to go easy, but I couldn't help but try to beat my previous best of 36 minutes. I also love how whether I went the way I went or if I decided to go the other way it would be downhill then back uphill. Not easy. But these races may not all be flat... Hills happen. I might keep this as my "3 easy" route going forward, except I do have to cross a busy street twice, and I don't want to have to stop and have it affect my time.

Dueling tonight, so I'll be out late, and then I have 4 (or 5?) miles to do at "race pace" tomorrow. I think training for a marathon is the best excuse not to drink ever.