Lincoln Half Marathon

Well, it's official. This past week, I've committed myself to doing the Lincoln Half Marathon, which is coming up the first weekend in May. That's 14 weeks away, more than enough time to begin training, and be race ready. My wife (and a few of her coworkers) have already registered, and I'll be registering this weekend.

I've never really run before. While I did do track in high school my freshmen year, I was never competitive. My goals for this first half marathon will be to complete it, not compete in it. What's the point of doing it if I have no intention of competing? Just to prove to myself that I was able to accept the challenge, face my fears, push myself beyond my abilities, and actually succeed. Plus, I think it will be an incredible accomplishment that I'll never forget.

I'm actually just completing my second week of training. I have to admit, I don't really enjoy running, but am finding I feel really good after the run is over, and feel a sense of accomplishment. I've found that I really need to run with headphones, but supposedly during the race, headphones are explicitly banned. Ugh. But, I've also found that I can't really run without them, and I think that may be somewhat dangerous if I do all my training with my Ipod, but then can't use it in the race. Will have to sort that one out very soon.

So, within the coming weeks, I intend to blog quite frequently about my experiences. Yesterday, I ran/walked a total of 4.2 miles, which culminated in my 8th day of solid running. While that's a lot of miles for so early in the training program, I really just wanted to push myself past my comfort zone. I am following a plan, mostly, and do understand how important recovery is, and that you have to allow time for your body to heal. In fact, I intend to start following the training program fairly religiously, (as much as possible at least). I'm using Hal Higdon's novice half marathon training program. He is apparently fairly well known in the running community, and he does have several training plans to choose from, and a lot of people have had a great amount of success following his program.

13.1 miles. Can I really do this? A month ago, the thought of running 4.2 miles in one session seemed laughable. But, I did it yesterday, and felt like I could have done more. So, with 13 more weeks of training, I truly believe that 13.1 miles is doable! I've also found that if you keep telling yourself that you can't do something, either because it's too hard, or it's beyond your abilities, then you probably never will accomplish it. But, if you keep telling yourself you can, you eventually will!