I found out last week that a few people I know don’t think that I can succeed at the marathon.\u00a0 Most think I won’t be able to finish at the pace I have been training at, but one even thinks I will bail out before the race ends.<\/p>\n
It might sound strange, but the person who thinks I won’t finish bothers me the least.\u00a0 He is a non-runner and has no idea what he is talking about.<\/p>\n
But the people who don’t think I can keep my pace kind of bother me.\u00a0 Admittedly, I know that the race is going to be rough.\u00a0 In training, I’ve been running strong through 16, then feeling the pace after that.\u00a0 But I haven’t been slowing down while training.\u00a0 So I’m confident in the first 16 miles.\u00a0 I’m hoping to make it strong to 20, and then do whatever I have to so I get through the last 10k.\u00a0 People say that a marathon is a 10k race with a 20 mile warmup, so that’s kind of how I’m treating it mentally.\u00a0 Run smart but strong through the first 20 miles and then get through the last 10k.\u00a0 If that means 6 miles of walking, it means 6 miles of walking.\u00a0 I’ve never covered this distance before.\u00a0 I don’t know how I’m going to respond.\u00a0 Yes, my training seems to indicate that I can run a 6:30 marathon.\u00a0 Will I finish in 6:30?\u00a0 Probably not, and I’m not setting a time goal.\u00a0 But I’m proud of the fact that my training is going so well.<\/p>\n
But I’m really hoping to run strong for the first 20.\u00a0 I’m not going to be disappointed if I don’t, but I’ve been sticking to my training plan.\u00a0 I’m putting in the time.\u00a0 I’m stretching and cross-training and spending time with my foam roller.\u00a0 While I know there are things you can’t control, I have faith that I can do this.<\/p>\n
So it really hurt to hear that friends think that I can’t do it.\u00a0 Friends should be supportive of my efforts.\u00a0 It would be one thing if I wasn’t training or if I was injured.\u00a0 Then they should be encouraging me to step back and take a realistic look at things.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m always out there encouraging people to run, to pick a new goal and go for it.\u00a0 I’m always reasonable about it – but if I think you should try for that half marathon, you should.\u00a0 And I’ve also told people that I think certain races aren’t the best idea for them. I’m a realist when it comes to running, because no one wants to go into something knowing they’re going to fail.<\/p>\n
I have enough self-doubt about this race which I know I can work through.\u00a0 That’s kind of my thing.\u00a0 I sign up for something that scares me, worry if I can do it, psych myself into it, and succeed.\u00a0 But then when I find out that my friends are doubting me… that’s harder to shake off.<\/p>\n
I’m not going to say anything about it – I’d rather it just disappear.\u00a0 But now it’s going to be lingering in the back of my head on race morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I found out last week that a few people I know don’t think that I can succeed at the marathon.\u00a0 Most think I won’t be able to finish at the pace I have been training at, but one even thinks I will bail out before the race ends. It might sound strange, but the person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n