The Gauntlet
A bit of a change in plans is in the works as of today.Rather than do the half marathon in two weeks for the Memorial I will be doing the full marathon! I was planning on my first marathon being the Andy Payne in May, but realized while looking at the info online that the OKC Memorial Marathon is much more friendly to a beginner, (and a slow beginner at that!)
Reasons: 1) I can take an early start, 2) Last year’s results had plenty of people much slower than my pace, 3) The course is WAAAAY more interesting than laps around Lake Overholser.
Training-wise I feel a little bit at a midpoint: very much over-prepared, distance-wise, for the half and perhaps a little under-prepared for the full. My long-run to date is 18 miles. Another 8.2 miles sounds like an awful lot, and it is. But it doesn’t feel like an awful lot in my legs. (Especially considering the brutal weekend I did a couple weeks ago of 33 miles on the bike one day and a 17.5 mile run the next day.)
If you’re free on the morning of Sunday April 26th I would love to see you at the finish line or somewhere close to end, when I will really need to know that someone cares. If all goes well I should be crossing the finish around 11 am or so!
For more info on the Memorial events, go here
posted by Mike @ 3:19 PM
4 Comments:
Congradulations. And good luck. I hope to see you on the course at some point. I'll look for you, but in the sea of people plodding down the streets of our fair city, I may indeed miss you.
So what is the mindset like when you've run that far for that long?
I've never made it more than 3 miles....
Steven-
Depends on when and where in the run. Typical Saturday for me thus far has been:
First hour--completely blank, technically asleep.
Next hour--"what will the next song be?"
Next half hour--"man, I'm hungry."
Next half hour--"is this technically even considered 'running?'"
Next hour--"there's a muscle there?!"
(Not sure what the final 2 1/2 hours will hold, which is the absolutely frightening part...) Hopefully it'll just be numbness or boredom and not so much sharp PAIN! :-(
Charlie-
If I live through it, I will largely have you to thank. If I die on the course, I will largely have you to curse from the grave!
You'll live. And you have no idea how alive you will feel when you cross that finish line. I'm proud of you, your journey has been long and is only just beginning. After the sorness of the run leaves your legs, you'll be looking for the next one to sign up for.
My parents are shuttling me to the race, if you think you'll be done at 11am, I may stick around and try to find you.
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