1000 Miles!

     Sometime during my run yesterday, I crossed over the 1000 mile mark in my marathon training. Last year, on Sunday, September 16th I read the results of the TOU Marathon. That day I decided that I was going to complete it in 2008. The 17th, I started my training with 3.1 miles on a treadmill.
     Since then, I have:
      Come up with a plan
      Trained
      Learned a little
      Modified my plan
      Trained some more
      Learned some more
      Adjusted my intensity
      Taken a few weeks off
      Learned more
      Gone on business trips to Glendale, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada where I continued training
      Got off the treadmill
      Run my first marathon (Ogden in May - 3:43:54)

      Run two half marathons (Bear Lake in June - 1:37:15 and TOU in August - 1:30:03)
      Convinced a couple others to join me for TOU (Travis and Mom, Carol was already going to run it and was with us at the half)
      Gone on a fifty mile backpacking trip that turned into 75 miles after putting in more than a marathon to "rescue" a lost scout and a 14 mile hike summiting King's Peak (highest in Utah)
      Taken a week off backpacking on the coast in Washington      Trained some more.
     I've logged the miles dedicated to training for this race and this week I topped 1000 miles! I've run 155 days, and averaged 6.5 miles per run. I never would have imagined running 1000 miles in my life. Talk about milestones...
     I hope that it doesn't sound like I'm bragging. One of the things that I have learned in all of this is that anybody who can run a mile can run 26. (Actually, around mile 9 of the Ogden Marathon, somebody was displaying a sign that said, "Any fool can run, but it takes a special kind of idiot to run a marathon.)
     Among the other things that I learned are the following:
  1. 26.2 miles isn't hard if you have food and water, but 19.8 is if you don't.
  2. Junk food taste great, but it smells even better after a 15 mile run.
  3. Brownies aren't really good for running, but I can eat anything I want on Sundays and get it all out of my system by running 6.2 miles Monday morning. However, that 6.2 miles is a lot easier if I don't eat everything I want to.
  4. Many people have run their first marathon and many people have helped many people run their first marathon. They don't know everything, but they know a lot more than I do.
  5. Running too hard is discouraging, unnecessary, and very sweaty.
  6. Getting up early to run seems hard but life happens more during the day and it takes a lot more dedication to stick to your plan with life happening around you.
  7. Don't listen to people who say you can't do something just because they haven't.
  8. Don't listen to people who say you can't do something just because they haven't tried.
  9. Don't listen to people who say you can't do something just because they have tried and failed.
  10. Do listen to people who have done what you want to do.
  11. Do listen to people who say you can do something and believe in you. These people are your friends.
  12. It's not over until you say it is.