Well - it's time for a deep breath and a leap of faith. I'm less than a week away from my first half marathon - by far one of the toughest goals I have ever set for myself. Running 13.1 miles at one time was never - I truly mean never - something I ever would have imagine myself doing in my wildest dreams. I was never a runner growing up. Sure, I was athletic and involved in all kinds of sports and activities, but I was never good at distance running and never even desired to be. If I was good at anything related to running, it was sprinting, and that was when I was young. Then a wonderful thing called puberty hit me in my teenage years, and those changes significantly slowed me down. From that point on, I didn't run. I ran as part of another sport I was doing or as punishment for screwing up in one of those sports. Honestly, if someone had told me a few years ago that I'd sign up for a half marathon, I would have laughed. Roll on the floor laughing.
That's part of why this is such a big deal to me. I've been proud of many of my accomplishments in life so far, but most of them were expected or anticipated. They were things that I was good at, and generally centered on school and education. This half marathon is something out of that realm and a goal that I personally set up for myself - not one that was set up for me. It's a goal outside of my comfort zone and outside of something that I'm good at. I'm not going to lie - I'm not good at running. It's hard for me, and I'm slow. It takes me longer than most to increase my distance. But I'll be darned if I haven't worked harder than just about everyone out there to achieve this goal.
And that's why I'm sitting here with my stomach in knots and my head telling me so many different things. One second I'm sure I can do this and will finish just fine. I've run the full 13.1 miles on a few occasions now and made it every time. Sure, it wasn't pretty, but I did make it. I can do it. But....the next second my head is second guessing me. As always. It's saying that those training runs were SO SO hard. That I almost didn't make it. And that those runs were in ideal weather conditions in a place I am familiar with and on a relatively flat course. Honestly, I feel like a kid going to my first day of kindergarten with a bunch of kids who have already been there for 3 months. I have NO IDEA what to expect, and a good majority of the people I'll be there with have done this time and time again. I feel like I can read all the articles and blogs, and even the press releases from the Akron Marathon in the world, but nothing can calm me down.
I did pretty well throughout most of my training (even though, as I may have mentioned, I didn't follow a formal training plan), but I think most of my anxiety comes from being sick with a head cold with only three weeks to go before the half marathon. I hardly ran at all that week. Not only did I feel run down, but I couldn't breathe enough to run, and I opted to rest and rest and rest to get over the illness more quickly. My worst days of the head cold were unfortunately the Friday - Sunday of the weekend that I was supposed to be my very last long run. I never got it in. I didn't know what to do. So I tried getting back out there on Tuesday and just running whatever I could after work since I was feeling better. I only made it 3 miles before I couldn't breathe anymore and started coughing uncontrollably. It was miserable and embarrassing. It was also totally defeating and a huge blow to my self confidence. I was already concerned because I missed my last long run and took almost a whole week off from running that close to the race. And now a 3 mile run felt impossible. What was I going to do? Well I'll tell you what I did. I made excuses almost every day this past week about why I couldn't go for a run and how I need to sleep in every morning because I wasn't fully recovered. I took tapering to a whole new level. Now I have no idea what to do this week in preparation for the half marathon. I can't just take another week off - for a total of 3 weeks in a row. But then again, I can't tire myself out right before the race after such little activity the past 2 weeks. I'm going to need to force myself to find a good enough balance between tapering and ensuring I'm not trying to run a half marathon after basically not running for three whole weeks.
Needless to say, I'm nervous. My worst fear is failing. I just can't accept that outcome, but I will be devastated if I don't finish or if I have a terrible experience. I just need someone to tell me it's going to be okay and that I'll make it. I need to believe it, too. To make matters worse, not a single person is coming with me that day. It's 45 minutes away, which isn't far at all, but I feel guilty asking someone to give up their entire day for me. I mean, what are they really going to do while I run? Nothing. They'll sit around and be bored. They probably wouldn't even be able to actually see me cross the finish line anyway. But there's just something about the feeling of going into this all alone that totally sucks. No one will be there that morning to give me a hug or tell me I can do it. No one will be there when (if) I cross the finish line to celebrate with me or tell me they're proud. So I'm torn. I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to sit around all day while someone else ran, especially if it wasn't something I was interested in. On the other hand, there's a part of me that just wants to be selfish for one of the biggest events of my life so far, and I want to cry sometimes when I think about being there all by myself with no one to share the experience with. I'm sure I'll be fine anyway, but sometimes I think I'd have a little less anxiety about the day if someone was there with me.
But I'll stop blabbering away and tell myself to stop feeling sorry for myself. I need to pull up those big girl panties for one more week. Someone please tell me I can do this. I just want it so so bad and am also so so scared of failing. It makes me wonder, do all runners feel this way before races? Is it just the new ones? Just the ones with less support? And does this anxiety get better after doing more races? Some things for me to ponder tonight, and something I might someday find the answer to if I keep on running. Good night to all and sweet running dreams.
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