The Real Reason I’m Training For a Half Marathon

Yes, that’s a t-shirt.  I am training for a half marathon because I wanted to buy a t-shirt.  More than that, I wanted to earn the right to wear it.

Now, this might sound crazy to you.  That would probably be because it’s crazy.  And lest you decide to stop shopping for any active-wear in fear that this will happen to you, my guess is that this t-shirt would have held no power for me if the seed of desire to run a half marathon weren’t already somewhere inside me.

The t-shirt began things.  I saw it in a little shop downtown that specializes in fashionable workout gear for women, and I thought about it for weeks afterwards.  It’s funny.  It’s a little cheeky.  I’m married to someone who runs marathons, and when he’s done, it doesn’t always look like it was a whole lot of fun.  This shirt kind of makes fun of that… and since there’s usually nothing funny about Greg’s running, it just made me want it even more.  This shirt epitomizes what I love about running – a true challenge, but not so much of one that you’re not having fun.  I liked this shirt.  I had to have this shirt.

I went back and bought the shirt, and put it in my closet with tags on it.

Not too long after that, I found a half marathon in DC’s wine country on the day before my 30th birthday in September.  At the time, it was four and a half months away.  I’d been running consistently ten miles a week, so I was already active.  A quick look at websites confirmed that training for a half marathon in four months was reasonable.

So I talked to Greg, I went upstairs and looked at that t-shirt again, and we booked ourselves plane tickets and signed me up for the Diva’s Half Marathon in Virginia on September 14th, 2013.  (Marathon runners are not the people to talk to if you’re looking for a voice of reason, by the way.)  It’s an all women event.  You get champagne from a shirtless guy at the end.  There are tiara and water stations on the course.  It’s so perfect for a milestone birthday weekend destination race it’s not even funny.  We can even go out for a nice meal in wine country that night and talk about how awesome I am, instead of about how freaked out I am that I’m turning 30 the next day.

It’s perfect.

So… here I go.  Wish me luck and watch out for those t-shirts.