The Big One

I've fretted about this, probably too much. You know, that 26.2 mile race.

Wondered, pondered, pictured, imagined.

Worried, fretted, squirmed, fidgeted.

Decided? Yes... but there's a but.

I want to do it. I want to tackle what many consider the biggest physical challenge us lay people can tackle. I want to train for, strive for, fight for, struggle for one.

I want to run a marathon.

But.

I can't do it alone. So I've come up with something. For a while now, my wife has been insisting I join some sort of running club. She told me about a local running group called the Loma Linda Lopers, which I'd vaguely heard about before. The Lopers are a running club and help runners (and walkers) of any level meet running (or walking) goals. In fact, one of their big things is helping people train for marathons. Their "season" runs from July to June, so if I join it probably won't be until July.

I believe right now they are training for a marathon in late May, the last weekend in May. And that's far too quickly for me to consider running one. Besides I have a business trip planned for the following week (guess I'll mention now that I'm going to Costa Rica from June 1-6) and the last thing I need is to limp around Central America for a week.

There will be other marathons, I'm sure. The Lopers typically have trained for the Los Angeles Marathon which traditionally has been in February or March, but when that marathon switched to May, the Lopers turned their focus on the Surf City Marathon in Huntington Beach, Calif. And that's where they'll focus for the next clinic. Starting in July, the Lopers will begin training for the 2010 Surf City Marathon.

So that might be my first marathon. I want to take this next step in my fitness journey, the hardest possible step I can take but I'm afraid that I can't do it alone. I'm also aware that this running thing is more than just a hobby but rahter an integral part of my life now. And if it's important, I should invest some time and money into it, and try to gain as much knowledge as I can. In some ways I think I've come as far as I can on my own, and now it's time to seek out some help from more experienced runners.

Now, if I didn't have this goal of running a marathon perhaps things would be different. In fact, earlier Thursday I was thinking that I should focus on 10Ks and try to get to the point where I can run a 10K in under 50 minutes. But that goal does not excite me as much as the prospect of running a marathon does.

Is it going to be hard? Yeah. Is it going to make me suffer physically and emotionally? Probably. But is it something that I feel the need to take on? Yes.

Here then I'm going to formally submit my intentions of running a marathon. Whether it's in 2010, before or after will eventually be sorted out, but that's where I stand now and that's what I want.