Fear: My New Motivator

I’m afraid.

I signed up for a destination half marathon in September, bought plane tickets for my husband and I, booked the last room of a bed and breakfast, and lined up my parents to babysit so we could have our first weekend away from the kids since before Andrew was born.  The half marathon is the morning before my 30th birthday, and we’ve got reservations for an amazing birthday dinner in wine country that night.

Sounds amazing, right?

Well, maybe.  Where I am with my running right now, it could go either way.  I’ve been lagging on my long runs, excusing myself because of the weather, and not paying enough attention to all the running advice out there and doing hills and intervals to make myself a stronger runner.

I don’t want to spend that birthday dinner, the last night of my twenties, whining about how I ended up walking mile 6, 10 and 12 and took almost three hours to finish because I couldn’t get my butt in gear TODAY and for the next eight weeks.  I want to sit there feeling smug and accomplished and awesome because I just ran a half marathon, something I never in my life thought I’d be able to do.  

Where things are right now, there’s a chance I’ll be walking as much as running that half marathon if I don’t kick myself into gear.  And I want to kick it into gear.  I want, more than anything, to work hard enough in these next eight weeks before the marathon so that when I cross that finish line it’ll be a celebration of all the times I pushed hard when I felt like stopping, stayed fast when I wanted to catch my breath, and got up early to run when I wanted to stay in bed.

The harder I work during these next eight weeks, the greater that triumph will be when I cross the finish line knowing I prepared for it and I ran my best race.

I’ll never get another first half marathon.  I may not even get another half marathon, because frankly, running for more than six miles is actually kind of boring.  Turns out I may be the kind of runner who wants to get out there for half an hour to an hour, then hit the shower feeling satisfied that I worked hard enough for one day.

I’m grateful that I am thinking about that finish line now, and realizing that if I don’t shape up, I’ll be wishing I could transport myself back to this moment and time and start over.  I’m here, now, and it’s not too late to do better.  I’m adding another run in to up my weekly miles so I’m running four days a week, I’m going to try to do at least ten minutes of strength training three days a week, and no more lying to my Garmin about my walking breaks on those long runs.  Every run is a race now, every time I lace up is a time to run as hard as I can for those miles.

I am going to buckle down, starting now.  I am running this.