It’s been a good year of running for me. A few 5Ks, a few 10Ks… even a 7K and of course a couple of half marathons and one full distance. 850 + miles logged so far for 2009. Several pairs of running shoes, discoveries of new fuel, sports massages and lots of lessons learned.
found the shoes and fuel for me
I know I will run another marathon someday. I really would like to take the lessons learned from the Colorado Marathon and try again. I’ve been running, cross training, lifting weights, going to yoga and keeping my marathon thoughts on the backburner. That is until several runners from the club where I work out decided to go out to Las Vegas on December 6th to run the inaugural Las Vegas Rock n’ Roll Marathon/Half Marathon. Many are running the half marathon and two are participating in the full marathon. In fact I saw these two amazingly athletic women (Julie and Mandy) running down Northgate just this morning… and watching them, I was conflicted. Part of me would love to join them… the race is in 11 weeks and I think that would be plenty of time to train considering the year of running that I have had. My goal would be to simply finish it without having to take any ‘breaks’ 
hopefully resulting in some kind of PR whatever that may be.
crossing the finish line and receiving this medal was amazing
But a big part of me is not sure I have the commitment in me just now. The early mornings, snowy runs, aches and pains… the sheer time that training for a full marathon takes. Also, it hasn’t been that long and the memories of how I felt post-race are still pretty vivid. I was so broken for several weeks… unable to run more than 3-4 pain-free miles at a time for quite a while. I think it would be fair to say that it took me over a month to feel 100% again. If running a marathon is like childbirth, then perhaps it is too soon. I told myself I would run another full marathon next year – 2010 … the year I will celebrate my 40th trip around the sun. But I found myself getting caught up in the excitement of so many cool running women heading to Vegas for a race and fun … someone asked me today why I don’t just go and run the half… ironically that didn’t really occur to me until today. I guess I was just thinking, well hell if I am going all the way out there, I may as well run the full. The half distance is doable without too much extra training by just keeping up my current routine. I kinda wish there was a 20 mile option!
But you know, it doesn’t always have to be all or nothing….and there is always room for improvement on my half and that is something I really need to keep in mind as I come to a final decision.
