Lately, I’ve begun to remember what training is really like. It it tiresome. It hurts. It’s stressful. It’s uncertain.

It’s tiresome: I run 4 days a week and do miscellaneous cross training on 2 days. I praise God for that last day: rest day.  I could do some ‘active recovery’ on my rest day, but I do not. I revel in the rest. I NEED the rest.

It hurts: Hold on a minute. I’m not saying I’m running and exercising through pain that should sideline me. I’m referring to the creaky knees, stiff legs, weary warms and tired back that come from the speed training, tempo run, ‘easy’ runs (that is a joke – none of them are easy for me) and that much anticipated long run on Friday. At any given time, at least one of my body parts hurts.

It’s stressful: I worry that I’m not doing all that I can do to prepare myself. I worry that I pushed myself too hard during that speed training or tempo run. I worry that I’ll wake up one morning and decide not to run and later regret it. I stress out about my clumsiness rearing its ugly head and causing me to fall (again). On another random and strange note, I always have this fear that I am going to fall and break out all of my front teeth. The gummy grin is only cute on babies!

It’s uncertain: I can do every single training run, cross train like a maniac and eat/drink right and I really don’t know for sure how the marathon will be for me. I could fall and hurt myself. It could rain the day of the marathon. I could just ‘not have it’ on the day of the marathon. Who knows?

BUT WITH ALL THAT SAID…. I’m still training. I’m still showing up on the start line and I AM GOING TO GET THAT MEDAL.

To me, that’s the wonder of an athlete.  (Did I just refer to myself as an athlete??)  We have faith in our training, faith in our will, faith that God will see us through it.  I have no idea whether I will run this race and feel fabulous afterward or if I will have to crawl across the finish line. 

click here to view video  ps:  I am not making fun of these runners.

What I do know is that today I’m going to do what I can to make it my best marathon possible.

All I can do is what I can do. Know what I mean?

Keep it moving. Until next time!