I am not a runner. Let's get that straight from the beginning. I am a musician. I am a pastor. I'm a husband and a dad. I am even a good athlete, or so I would like to suppose. I am a lot of things. But I am not a runner. In fact, for most of my life, I have loathed running.
I used to taunt my sister, an All-American distance runner, that she had chosen as a sport an activity that normal athletes use as a warm-up, something to keep them in shape so they could play an actual sport.
Resolving to run a 26.2-mile road race, then, would seem like a rather stupid thing for me to do. I am aware of this, often acutely so.
I'm not really certain I can give you a satisfactory answer to the salient question, "Why the hell would you want to do that?" My only answer is, "Because I want to be able to say that I did." And I suppose if that doesn't satisfy your curiosity, or if that doesn't make sense to you, there is no amount of additional explanation that would help much.
Here are some more details about my crazy quest.
The Rochester Marathon takes place on Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 8:00 a.m. It begins and ends within walking distance of my house—but I imagine I'll have a friend drive me there and back. There is a link in the sidebar.
I'm running the race with my lovely wife. The date of the race will be about two weeks after our eighth anniversary, and we'll both be 30 years old when we cross the finish line. Two other friends will be running with us: another of the pastors from Artisan Church, and his wife.
I am using The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer as my guide. There are plenty of other training guides out there, even for non-runners, but I chose this one because of its intriguing history and its emphasis on psychological as well as physical preparation. It is a 16-week training program whose only prerequisite is the ability to jog for 30 minutes without stopping. There is a link in the sidebar to Amazon.com's product page for the book.
My shoes are Asics GT-2120s. Although I like them, I can't claim any particular passion for them other than that they felt better than the only other pair of 14B shoes the store had in stock. Interestingly, my sister was very excited when I told her what I had bought, because she used the same series of shoe when she was running competitively.
During my training, I will use the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit (even though headphones are not recommended by the authors of The Non-Runner's Marathon Trainer). It's not that I really need to listen to music while I run; it's more that I find the Nike+ system to be incredibly motivating because it tracks your distances and times, gives you real-time information as you run, and helps you manage goals and challenges set by yourself or other runners. I "modded" my shoes by using a simple shoe wallet with a velcro strap that goes under the laces. It works fine for my purposes.
I hope this blog will be another source of motivation for me as I train. Putting it out there for all my family and friends to follow—and for anyone else on the planet to follow, for that matter—means that if I fall short, everyone will know. And writing intentionally about my training will be the best way for me to process what I'm going through. It is my intention to record both brief notes on each of my training runs and longer entries about how things are going and what I'm learning about myself.
Feel free to leave comments or just read along. (There's a link to the site feed after this post.) And if you're in the area on September 16, I sure would love to see you somewhere on the course. Wish me luck. I have to get running now.
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