Bold Moves

Despite the seemingly endless grip of winter, spring race season is finally here!  This year will be slightly less aggressive for me compared to last year’s 7 half-marathons and 1 full marathon.  Why?  Well, it’s not entirely by plan. That hamstring injury in late December set me back quite a bit for off-season base building and forced me to alter my plans for running a spring marathon.  I always try to make the best of things though so I revamped my plans and set my sights on a Fall marathon instead.  So, in the last month, a lot has happened!   I celebrated yet another birthday (better than the alternative), I got back into my normal training plan, I got in to the Chicago Marathon (lottery entry this year), and I ran the Rock the Parkway Half-Marathon.

Since running Chicago means a road trip plus big expenses, I decided to cut back my race schedule.  I’ve also decided to purchase a custom made marathon training plan, one created by professionals who can take into consideration my goals and needs as a runner and then craft a plan that will yield success.  I chose McMillan Pro to create my plan and I can hardly wait!

Race season is so motivating and this spring is no exception.  Especially with the extra emotional Boston Marathon, which happened to occur on my birthday. I wanted to add my own ‘positive mojo’ for the event so that weekend I ran 18 miles with Team-in-Training.  It was a tough run since it was 4 miles farther than I’d run so far this year but that was kind of the point.  Felt good.  Felt meaningful.  And then I ran RTP half-marathon two weeks later.  It was a good race for me, allowed me to push my hamstring and find out that everything is fine.  I didn’t PR, but was happy with my finish.  I have two  more HM’s before Chicago.

Yesterday I not-so-patiently waited for the storms to pass through so I could get out to the lake for my long run.  It was a GREAT run!  Ran a bit over 10 miles and managed a negative split.  Ran my last three miles hard, the ongoing “retrain my brain” effort to keep my mind from limiting my run.  Yes, it’s possible to run hard without dying, literally.   Isn’t that true of many things?  We limit ourselves not with real, tangible obstacles but with imaginary ones conjured up in the depths of our minds.  God gave us a remarkable ability to persevere though and with Phil 4:13 in mind, all things are possible!