Marathoner

I want to become a marathoner. I’ve been trying to get back into a regular running routine, and I caught myself looking ahead to the end goal of completing a marathon instead of taking it one step at a time.

Our driveway entrance 

It is exactly one mile from the end of our driveway down to the stop sign at the end of our road. I’ve been (slowly) running that 2 miles and anxiously desiring to run it faster and add on more miles. Some days it feels great to get out there and run and other days I have to talk myself into putting one foot in front of the other.

The other day I was on the way back home on the second mile, and my feet felt SO HEAVY, my body felt SLOW, and I just felt tired and unmotivated. I started feeling discouraged that I’ll never run a marathon. It’s been years since I first started! Things keep getting in the way of training! I can’t even run two miles without getting tired! It’s taking too long to get back in shape!

All of that negative thinking was squashed when I remembered that becoming a marathoner isn’t really about running the marathon. Running 26 miles happens at the end of the journey, after all of the training, all of the slow miles, sore feet and blisters, tired bodies that get out and run anyway, sticking to a schedule when it’s too cold, too hot, or you’re just not feeling it, falling down and getting back up, pushing through discomfort, finding motivation to go a little faster and a little further. A marathoner is great because of the hard times during training, when they wanted to give up but didn’t.

I shouldn’t be discouraged when the second mile is hard. It’s not about how hard it is, it’s about what I decide to do when it’s hard. The second mile is just as important as the 26th mile, because I have to master it before I ever get to mile 26. Every marathoner had to start at the beginning. There was a point when mile 2 was hard and they pushed through and kept going until it was easy.

A selfie with Gideon while out for a run

I’m not a marathoner yet, but I’m going to be. It feels a little silly to tell people I’m training for a marathon when I’m struggling on mile 2, but this is the time I get to find out if I have what it takes to keep going or if I’m going to stop. Spoiler alert: I’m not going to stop. It would be fantastic if I am able to run the marathon this year, but there’s no deadline. It will happen when it happens and I’ll keep slowly trucking along until then.

Here is a link to the first blog post I wrote about the marathon I want to run across three countries.