Know When to Fold 'Em...

Nearly 11 weeks ago, I started an ambitious journey to train for the Soaring Wings Half Marathon and White River Marathon for Kenya.  Both of these events are within 3 weeks of each other so I dubbed this training cycle as "Marathon Madness" for my dailymile tracking.  All in all, the training has gone much better than I could have expected.  For 9 weeks, I only missed 2 runs.  One of them for sickness and another one for just being exhausted after working all night.  I hate missing runs, but I hate really horrible runs even more.  I don't feel like I get much out of a run if my body just doesn't want to do it.  I firmly believe that if you listen to your body that it will respond much better for you than if you try to push it through aches and pains just to "log the miles".

Fast forward to this past week, week 10.  I had just run my peak long run for the White River Marathon training on Saturday (20 miles) which turned out to be a very good training run.  I felt good and kept it at the pace I needed.  I woke up on Monday morning and, despite my best recovery efforts on Saturday, felt extremely sore.  I normally wake up and can run my way past the soreness on Monday mornings, but this time was different.  I decided that my body needed another day of rest, especially with the Soaring Wings Half Marathon coming up on Saturday.  I woke up on Tuesday feeling much better and ready to get back to it.  I took off for my 5 mile run feeling pretty good... until mile 3.  It was then that the gastrointestinal monster hit.  The next 3 miles were the worst in my running history.  The entire time I am thinking about what Kevin would do in this situation and I refused to do it.  I don't do it on the backpacking trails and I sure wasn't going to do it in the woods of Conway AR.  I jogged back home, half the time doubled over.  Needless to say, this was one of the worst "runs" I had ever had.  Wednesday morning came and it was time for my mid-week long run and 10 miles were on the training plan for the day.  I got out of bed, got my running gear on, and took a couple more steps and realized really quickly something was wrong.  I was having SHARP pains shoot through my knee.  I tried to stretch, walk it off, and tell myself it wasn't a big deal.  I went outside and started to jog and almost fell down because of the shooting pain.  By now this FAIL of a week was really beginning to irritate me.  I really wanted to complete this 10 miles.  I sat there a minute thinking about my options.  I knew I had 13.1 coming up on Saturday and another 26.2 miles 3 weeks later so I hesitantly decided to shut it down for the week.

It is Saturday morning, Soaring Wings Half Marathon race day.  In approximately 1 1/2 hours the gun will go off and I will have started my 6th half marathon since my running journey began almost 3 years ago.  Over these last couple of years I have learned a lot when it comes to running.  The most important thing... listen to your body!  Most of the time your body is really trying to tell you something if it is hurting.  You will know the difference between just being sore and your body actually being hurt.  I've found that if I listen, my body usually responds well and I am good to go a few days later.  This week has reinforced this more than ever.  In 1 hour and 15 minutes the gun will go off and I feel great.

Let me introduce myself, and a couple of others too!

It all started in 2010 and roughly 30lbs ago.  Well... let me back up a minute to October of 2009.  My wife and brother-in-law Kevin (both of whom I will mention often) were running their first half marathon.  This was the Soaring Wings Half Marathon in Conway, Arkansas.  It is a half marathon which raises money to provide a home for children with troubled family life.  The place... Soaring Wings Ranch.  Our families watched and cheered as they raced and ultimately crossed the finish line.  They were tired, yet elated that they had accomplished such a goal.  They had both previously run a 5K or two... but this was by far their biggest achievement as new runners.  My exact words as they approached me after they finished the race... "You guys are crazy, why would you ever run 13.1 miles?  You will never see me running!"  I meant it too, at the time.  You see, I had never run further than 400 meters, and that was in high school.  I wasn't good either.  We just didn't have enough students to fill a track team so they needed warm bodies.  I digress.

Fast forward to January of 2010.  I had been experiencing some health issues.  I was overweight and had a lot of sinus problems.  While going through a couple of surgeries to correct those problems, I had more than one doctor tell me that my blood pressure was way to high for someone my age.  The fact of the matter is that I felt bad every day.  I have asthma and allergy problems and they had never been worse in my life.  I had no energy and it showed in my daily life.  My mental state at work was bad, I wasn't a very good father or husband, and I realized it was time for a change.

I decided I would put my stubbornness to the side and see if I could manage running a little bit to try and get into better shape.  I stumbled across the Cool Running Couch to 5K plan.  I decided I would give it a shot.  This decision was made in January of 2010 and I made a goal to be ready to run my first 5K in May, the Toadsuck 5K/10K in Conway, Arkansas.  I did most of the early part of my training on a treadmill at the gym.  At the time, I liked it because I had a TV to distract me.  Over time, I learned to hate treadmills and can't stand the thought of getting on one now.  Getting started was very tough.  There were times I thought it was going to be impossible.  However, with the support of my wife, my brother-in-law, and my friend Aaron who was a cancer survivor and new runner himself (much more on him later) I was able to get through the training and ultimately run and finish.  If I recall, my time was just under 30 minutes which was my goal.  I was on what they call a "runners high"!  

So... long story short... I got crazy and signed up for my first half marathon (Soaring Wings) and my first marathon (St. Jude's Memphis Marathon).  Needless to say, Kevin and I have a long history of biting off more than we can chew, or do we?  5 half marathons and 2 full marathons later, I can honestly say I am hooked. Am I fast?  No.  I am an "Average Joe" runner to this day. However, that is what keeps me going.  I can't wait until the day I break a sub 2 hour half marathon and a sub 5 hour full marathon and I won't stop until I do.  I will be running my 6th half marathon in 2 weeks (Soaring Wings again) and my 3rd full marathon next month (White River Marathon). 

I could quite possibly break the 5 hour mark at the White River Marathon because it is so flat.  However, these are just training runs for another ambitious goal that Kevin and I have for next spring...our first attempt at a 50 mile trail run.  I said we get a little crazy, and we have.  I am super pumped about it and can't wait to get to work.  Kevin has already done a 50K so he has a taste for it.  Now I do too.  More on this training later.

I hope non-elite, Average Joe runners will find our thoughts and training useful.  When looking for something similar, someone to encourage us and give us advice, we couldn't find it.  We will do our best to share that with you.