I don't know what I'm doing...

But I'm going to have fun figuring it out.

7 weeks until I'm celebrating marathon #5 and hopefully a huge PR by eating loads of yummy Cuban food. The Ing Miami marathon is less than 7 weeks away at this point. Holy crap!

This past week:
40 miles running
21 miles stationary bike

I don't know what I'm doing training or attempting to train for another marathon. I'm not sure why I even continue training for these events when they take so much time and are so hard on the body. And I seriously don't enjoy the training 25% of the time.
Speed work 800's: love it
Hilly fast miles: super fun
Marathon pace run: bring it
Long run: eh, I'd rather not.


I've figured the problem is mostly that the weather here stinks and I'm too picky and refuse to run outside when it's too hot or too cold, or windy,Too dark, or rainy or when there are too many cyclists out. (too many excuses!) So I spend a lot of time running on my BFF, the tread. I can handle an hour no problem on the tread, but anything over 1:30, and I just want to hop off and go back to my apartment up stairs.


Saturday was a breakthrough for me. The weather was total crap for running outside (0 degree wind chill!?! That's not cold, that's slap your face until red kind of pain). So I had to gut it out and do the LSD run on the tread. All week I had been thinking about goals for next year and beyond as well as my accomplishments for 2011. The fire was lit with motivation and I needed to execute this run. I thought about my goal for Miami, goals for next year, and my other long term running goals during the run and the miles flew by. 11 miles in the first sitting, and then started the final 10 about 2 hours after the first 11.
21 miles in 2:59!


I realized that to reach my goals- whether it be short term or long term I need to put the work in (earth shattering revelation I know). It isn't going to be fun all of the time, but I can try my darnedest to enjoy it as much as possible. But who said accomplishing goals should come easy? I know deep down I'd cherish an accomplishment more if I had to work my butt off for it. Plus, if I ever want to run a 3:04 marathon to beat my dad's best marathon time, I'm going to have to start running more- and enjoying these long runs, starting now. Have fun while running or bust!


I don't know what I'm doing running this marathon in January, and I certainly don't know why I'm already looking at another in the spring and possibly fall to achieve my BQ goal. But I do know that each one of these, and the others that will certainly follow will be fun in their own marathon type of way. Ill make sure of that.


- xaar