My Spirit of the Marathon

 

Tonight the old man and I watched Spirit of the Marathon (2008) in preparation to watch Spirit of the Marathon 2: Rome (2013) at the theater tomorrow night. Just to give you an idea of how bad we want to see this movie we're doing a 4 hour round trip to go to the closest theater to us showing it. Anyway, as we sat there watching on the laptop (on Hulu they don't have rights to show it on TVs and such, just via the web), I started thinking about my own marathon training which is leaving a lot to be desired. Through no fault but my own laziness I am no where near what I feel I should be in regards to preparation and mileage. The max I've done since my last half marathon is 10 miles and that was a couple of weeks ago. I need to be at 20 miles minimum by  6 weeks from now. That's a lot to build up to in a short period of time plus a week of tapering.

I'll likely do a 12 mile long run this weekend and bump it up by 1-2 miles each weekend. The weekend before taper is a half marathon mostly on the same route as the marathon I'll be doing. I know that this is more and faster than I should be doing, but I need to do some catching up. The big test will be the week before we leave for Idaho (where the races are), I'll have the hubs drop me off at a little town roughly 26 miles from home...and I'll see how far I can make it towards home. This should be particularly interesting as this highway has most of the hills in the county...not big ones, but just hill after hill for about 2 miles.

I think I've had the same gumption as those followed in the movie in that I won't let anything stop me (although I may need a cheerleader or two). I mean really, if I was having a neurological event (like the one at 2013 TinkerBell HM) and just kept going just so I could finish the race and get that medal. If that's not gumption, I don't know what is.

I will finish this first marathon (technically the second because I hiked the Bataan Memorial Death March full course) even if I have to walk the whole thing. Thankfully it's mostly downhill...my quads and hammies are gonna hate me, and hate me even more because of the back to back torture of downhill running.

So I ask that you wish me luck and somebody please send a virtual smack in the head to me for signing up for a total of 8 full marathons this year!! WTH was I thinking?!?

The first two are givens but yes, I am willing to die to finish.