I must have lost my mind somewhere….

Because no blog post is complete without a photo of one of my cute animals, here you go – it’s little Osito in a summer dress!!

 

Drum roll please….. I’m going to train for my SECOND MARATHON!!! That’s right, only 6 short years (note sarcasm) after the first one, I’m going to do this to myself again. You all know I live in Boston, and well, it’s a crazy-for-running town. Seeing my friend Lisa and so many others finish it this year and the FIRST AMERICAN in about 30 years finish first in the men’s race was just so inspiring.

I live along the course route so I can get an easy glimpse into the running of the marathon every April. If you’ve never watched a marathon, even on TV, I suggest you do so. It will give you a lot of inspiration. Maybe not necessarily to run that far, but it might motivate you to start working on a couch-to-5K program or something similar.

I admit, at the beginning of the weekend, if anyone asked me if I was training for a marathon, my answer was, “nope, I’ve already done one. That’s enough.” But now I think I have something to prove to myself. I am in so much different a frame of mind these days from how I was in 2008, it’s amazing. And I think my diet is much better. If there is one thing I remember about marathon training, it’s that your diet is KEY. If you eat crap all week long, then you better expect the crappiest run on the weekend.

My brother, who is the most awesomest running coach in the world, is going to be my coach and put together a program for me to follow. I’m not necessarily going to train for a particular time on this because I know I am slow, but I want to get through training without lots of back issues, etc. So, this morning he told me to run 2 miles and that’s what I did. I felt like I could run more, but I figure he knows best. And he said I have 6 miles to do this Saturday if I’m up to it. It’s a little bit more than my runs have been lately, but that’s ok. You need to stretch a bit sometimes. And if my body starts to hurt or I feel like it’s too much, I’ll tell him.

I’m not expecting to lose weight during these next several months. If anything, I just want some of the weight to shift in certain places. 🙂 You can’t really diet while training for a marathon distance. But I would like to be in better shape overall, and I really need a goal like this to work towards where my fitness is concerned.

I haven’t figured out yet which one I will be doing but I am leaning toward the Baystate Marathon for a few reasons.

1. It’s close by.

2. It’s a flat course.

3. It’s only $75 to enter (which is relatively cheap for a marathon.)

4. Because it’s flat (see number 2), it tends to be a fast course and one that usually ends up having about 1/3 of its participants qualify for Boston. (Nope, not even thinking that would be me, don’t worry. I’m content to watch Boston from the sidelines.)

5. Because it’s close by (see number 1), I could, in theory, run the course as a practice run when I hit around 13 miles.

6. It’s a loop course, meaning you run the same loop twice. I.e., why number 5 exists above. 🙂

It’s ok if you think I’m crazy – I wonder about myself sometimes!

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