Training for the San Francisco Half-Marathon

So, on my running adventures this past year-and-a-half, I have encountered many of my fellow runners who are “training” for their next race, marathon, ultra-marathon etc. I have been looking forward to the day that I am also actually “training” for an up-coming event. Well, the time has finally come that I am training for the San Francisco Half-Marathon on July 31st!

A couple months ago Mike and I embarked on our training. We began to extend our Saturday runs to 10 miles with the idea of going up to 13 so that we could experience the full mileage of the race. I must say that running 10 miles every Saturday is hard on one’s body. I began to get some serious knee pain that I had never had before. I would have to “ice” my knee all day Saturday and Sunday, not fun. Anyway, we have our half-marathon goal so we will “press on”!
As it turns out, life keeps happening, even if you have planned to run in your first half-marathon. If we would have known what the summer really had in store, we may have waited and ran a different one. Mike and I both ended up having a double-load of school this summer, meaning, Mike has four classes and I had three, in a span of 8 weeks!! Dillon and Megan got married at the end of June! This was wonderful and very fun, however, we did have to travel to Washington to enjoy the festivities. We were dedicated to our training and even ran 8 ½ miles on the Padon Parkway Trail in Vancouver, WA on the Friday before the wedding! (A beautiful trail, I might add). (I do not have a picture of us on the trail, but have added a picture of us at the wedding) Along with all the good and bad stressors came some physical battles with allergies and colds and knee pain, all rather exhausting to be honest.

As we come closer to the race (about 1 week away) I am gaining some relief from the stress of training I have felt. I am actually happy that tomorrow our training requires us to “taper-down” the week before the race meaning we will only run about 5 miles. This gives me peace. My knees will probably not require ice and a 5 mile run seems “easy’ to me at this point. I am looking forward to the half-marathon; it’s going to be great! However, I am surprised at myself for the many thoughts I am having about running these days.

I have had thoughts about how running is pretty hard; I could go to the gym 5 days a week and not experience the kind of knee pain I have experienced with running. I find that I have to be emotionally prepared to go the long distance; it is so difficult when I am emotionally taxed. I have thoughts about my future in running, do I love it as much as I used to? I love the results of it, but, it is very hard work. Mike has encouraged me by reminding me that when the race is over we will go back to our long run being 5 or 6 miles and that will seem pretty easy for us. He has reminded me that we will not feel so pressured and running will probably become more fun again, and certainly, our bodies will not have as many aches and pains!

It seems so strange to me, in some ways I am disappointed in those thoughts and feelings I have been having, as if somehow I have failed, failed to love the long-distance part of the sport that so many people adore. I have a dream to run in a marathon some day, a full marathon, but, I think that will have to wait until my schooling is done and I have a little less “on my plate” than I do now. I do not want to stop running, but this experience has caused me to see things in a new light. I will feel much more content to run 12 to 15 miles a week and know that someday I will run the full marathon, someday, but not now.