~

Today was an easy four-mile run. Well, at least I thought it was going to be easy. I ran it nice and slow—8-minute miles—but it still wasn't as easy as it should have been. Maybe it was because I had eaten right before; maybe it was because it was late in a stressful day and I was tired; maybe it was because it was a little hot and a little humid.

Anyway, whatever. I felt great after running, so the not-so-great experience of the running itself was quickly forgotten. I went to the Rec Plex to do some circuits of bodyweight squats, pull-ups, crunches and push-ups until my body was annihilated (it didn't take long) and then I walked back home.

I reflected a lot today about my journey to deciding to run a marathon. Like I mentioned before, it wasn't long ago that I didn't run at all. Period. My friend Luke a year or two ago asked me if I wanted to train for a half-marathon with him, and my response was essentially Hell No.

Fast forward: Somehow my mom convinced me to run a 5K last November, and I ran 3 miles at a time regularly since then. I mentioned this once to a marathoner girl I met, and she scoffed.

And then in April, my mom and sister convinced me to run an 8K, which was fine. I still preferred to run 5Ks, but I showed myself that I could run 5 miles (faster than anyone else in my family, apparently).

Somehow Klodian convinced me to sign up for Tough Mudder. That'd be a 10-mile course, and the farthest I'd ever run was 5 miles. I knew I wasn't prepared, but I also knew that I had a few months to get prepared. So I wasn't worried.

And then on the MARDI GRAS trip in May, I met Tom, who'd run the Chicago Marathon a few times. I don't know why, but that may have been the biggest motivator to get me to sign up for it myself. Of course, at first I was just going to run 26 miles on my own just for the heck of it, but I quickly realized that was a recipe for losing focus. It's much easier to stick to a training schedule when there's an actual deadline.

So now I'm doing it. Training for a marathon, when no more than a few months ago I told everyone who breached the subject that there was no way in the world I'd ever run a marathon...

Thanks Mom, Sis, Klodian and Tom

Tomorrow I'm running the Superun 5K at Lake Park. I think it's a pretty tough course... some big hills. My goal is 20:30; we'll see how it goes.