Marathon Training ... Epilog

Saturday, June 19, 2010
Marathon Day ... but I am not running it

Today is the running of Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota. For the last five years, and for a total of 24 Grandma's Marathons, I had been there. Not this year. Sometime between the forming of the training plan in late January and today, I changed my mind. It has left me a little depressed as I think about not reaching my goal this time.

There were any of a number of reasons/excuses: weather, cost, my training level, time away from the ranch, and so on, the list could grow. I think the biggest single factor at this point was my mental desire to do the run. While it is true, all of the factors being considered are important, it basically came down to that single fact. I usually like running for the most part. But as I was getting into the long runs early in this training plan (12, 14, 16) I noticed I did not have the mental drive needed to just keep jogging along, and I was walking for a good part of the training. Taking that into consideration, I concluded that I'd probably be walking too much of the marathon and it would take over 5-hours again. As a result, I pretty much scratched "Grandmas" off of the plan sometime in early May (as can be seen by the reduction in training run distances). By late May, I even stopped blogging my running training. I might go back through my logs and add some entries for the training I was doing, but I know the miles were not being run, and I had even quit updating my Training Plan/Mileage Log spreadsheet. (I'll probably update that though, too, just to see how far off I was from the plan.)

So, this entry is posted as an epilog to my 2010 Marathon Training blogs. As is true for most personal journals and diaries, this will likely be unread, but it just needed to be written here to clear my mind and conclude the blog regarding this marathon.



Update: Saturday, June 19, 2010
Whimpering time is over ... I went out for a run!

After writing the above summary earlier today, I decided to lace on the running shoes and go out for a run, after-all. It was a sunny, dry, and warm day with the temperature in the low 70's. The run turned out to be longer than I was planning as everything just felt good. Also, the scenery was great with cattle along the way up Sherman Road, interesting flora and fauna along the road, and great views across the green meadows to Blacktail Mountain and the Swan Range (both had visible coating of new snow from the rain/snow activity that took place over the last couple of days. So, although it wasn't a marathon, it was a good 8-mile run. (Plus, I saved about $800 to $1000 that I would have spent on air-fare, car rental, hotels, and food and beverages! (So, I think I'll buy another new camera! ... P.S. Later still ... I did!)


Let the log show: 8.008 miles in 1:29:08 (So, a marathon would have taken about 4 hrs and 50 minutes if I could have held the pace for +3x of today's distance).