A Little About the Marathon

I wasn't sure what I was going to talk about when I sat down to post something just now, but my aunt commented on my last post and asked how long it takes me to run 14 miles.

First of all, the marathon I'm running is May 6th down in Laguna, CA. My friends Sarah (our next-door-neighbor in Mississippi) ran her first marathon in October and bestowed all of her (great) advice on me, so that has helped. I'm following a training plan that has me running 3-4 times a week, with long runs on the weekends.

On AVERAGE I run at a 10-minute-per-mile pace. So if I have to run 4 miles, it takes me about 40 minutes. All of this running practice has helped me to run slightly faster than when I started, so I'll tentatively say more often than not I run each mile faster than 10 minutes. So really I could probably run 4 miles in about 37 minutes. Anyway, last weekend I ran 13 miles, and I did it in 2 hours and 5 minutes. I felt great!

But this past Sunday...

Running 14 miles didn't feel great. I walked 3/4 of a mile in my 10th mile, and seriously considered just walking home, but sucked it up and finished the last three miles (slowly). I finished in under 2.5 hours, but not easily. I blame feeling terrible on this:

This was Ruthie's birthday cake from Costco (so you can imagine it's size), and Chet and I weren't shy about eating it. (Costco makes AMAZING cakes, which is why we acquired such a humongous cake for our family alone -- there was no party. The cake is no longer with us; I was simultaneously sad and relieved to bid it farewell.)

[Some of you know I swore off sweets ("desserts" is perhaps a better term) for 2018, largely because I wanted to eat as well as possible while training for the marathon. I have a gigantic sweet tooth, but there's no denying that I feel a lot better when I'm not eating sweets. However, for the week of Ruthie's birthday, I let myself eat her cake. Sigh.]

I've noticed though, that even when I haven't been eating cake for a week straight, that some runs are better/feel easier than others, for no apparent reason. In saying that I could be referring to pretty much any aspect of life, so I have no idea why I'm so surprised.

My favorite thing about training for this marathon is the alone time. It's SO HARD to get time to yourself when you're parenting small children, and I like that I'm doing something challenging while having a break from the constant demands requests from my young people. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts while running -- whatever I'm in the mood for in the moment (usually nothing to "heavy" or that requires loads of concentration).

Hopefully that didn't bore anyone to death! On to Wednesday!