Marathon

A while back I committed to running the Barcelona Marathon on 7th March 2010. It sort of happened by itself.

My running buddy D, who was a friend of a friend and who decided that we should run together despite me hesitating, is from Girona. When we started running together nearly a year ago now, he lived 15 minutes away and we were both unemployed, and so it was easy to do. He was training for the 2009 version of the marathon and went on to successfully run it, in March last year. He kept challenging me to join him, or to consider another marathon, saying stuff like - you need to run a marathon, you're competitive, you ARE competitive.. as I would stress the fact that I took up running as a means to liberating myself from competition with (team)mates and to create a space where I could just be, just run.

I still see my running as a free space, but I am beginning to lump it into the "things I need to do" category, merely because it wouldn't otherwise happen, between travelling and working and doing various other projects.

I ran a couple of races this summer, enjoying myself along the way, and in particular my half marathon is something I'm very proud of. I ran those races for the sheer fun of it, to prove to myself that I, just me - ME!, could do it. And I did. I ran them all alone and achieved the results I wanted: satisfactory timings and a sense of pride and contentedness.

When D moved back to Girona this summer, I knew I was going to miss our running together, but also what had turned into a warm friendship. Him being a sports therapist, he would treat me for my sciatica, and I'd help him work on the website for his business. He'd make dinner, and we'd go for drinks, talking running and all the other stuff that happens in life. He became a good friend. So when he went back, the possibility of seeing him again in March to run together made so much sense that I said I'd do it. So now I am. And I've even been telling other people (even people at work, you fool!) that I'm going to go and I'm going to run it. It scares me to no end.

My main worries are these:

I won't take the time to train properly
I might have troubles with my sciatica (I need to have some treatment..)
I have no clue of proper marathon nutrition/hydration
My commitment isn't strong enough and I will waver

I'm excited too. This is what gets me going:

I'm going to bloody run a marathon!
I get to visit D in his home town
I get to run a marathon, my first, with D
If I can complete my training satisfactorily I'm sure I'll do great
The training will keep me fit and healthy

I haven't begun training properly, and as a matter of fact, I haven't been running as much as I usually would. I've just started a new job and a lot's going on in my life right now. So, this week I realised that there is not much more than 3 months to go, and I need to get me a running programme that I can then proceed to adjust, but at least I'll have one. I know for a fact that with my long hours at work it is difficult but possible to squeeze in runs, by taking TOIL in the morning, which I've been doing recently, and by going for a run before breakfast when away for conferences.

I've done the maths, and I've got 15 weeks from now to then. That's 3 months and 2 weeks. In the next month I'm going to India for 12 days (what am I going to do?! Can I run in 33 degrees?), and I'm going home for Christmas (the food will pose a challenge, but I did great with running last year so that might be ok). 15 weeks is about 3 weeks shorter than most marathon programmes will cover. I'm hoping that the fact that I've been running for well over a year (started properly in July of last year) will be a benefit.

This is going to be a (yet another) challenge over the next months.

I think I've delved enough into this for now, but will just share a sentence from a book I might need to buy:

"Marathoners battle the fiercest of foes: their own psyches".