i've been on the fence for the past few weeks about whether or not i was going to do the AT&T marathon (www.attaustinmarathon). while i know that running 26.2 miles on its own is not anything like running 26.2 miles after swimming 2.4 miles & biking 112 miles; it's still important for me to get over the mental hurdle of running a marathon for the first time. since signing up for 3M 1/2 marathon, oceanside 1/2 ironman, & CDA ironman next year i haven't been sticking to any specific training schedule. i know (& kristin continually reminds me) that choosing a training schedule is going to be crucial for me come january. i suppose that is why i've yet to commit to anything right now & why i've been taking each day as it comes because i don't want to burn myself out to early trying to stick to a strict schedule. i mean everything about an ironman requires strict discipline (eat right, in bed early at night, out of bed early in the morning, train, train, & train some more) & i'm just wanting to "relax" for a bit.
so this morning, i met ed for a run at 7:30am at the lake. kristin & i were out with a few friends last night at j black's (celebrating heather's bday) & after a couple of beers & not getting into bed until midnight it was nice to get a "late" start to a morning run. ed has already decided that he isn't doing the AT&T marathon so he was only looking to get in 7 miles. i knew this was my morning to either throw in my chips or keep the option for doing AT&T alive.
up until this morning my longest run in the past couple of months has been 12 miles (about 5 weeks ago). i've run 10 & 9 miles a couple of times, but have yet to get past the 12 mile mark. if i was still going to consider AT&T i needed to run more than 12 miles this morning (most serious marathon training schedules have athletes running 14 - 20 miles by now - i'm 10 weeks out from AT&T).
i started out with ed knowing that he wasn't going any further than 7 miles. about 1/2 way into the run he wasn't able to get his heart rate under control (he was out riding hard on his new guru road bike yesterday) so he told me to go on without him. at this point it was up to me on what i wanted out of this run. as i was approaching the 7 mile loop i could either stop, run another 3, 4, 5, 7, or 10 mile loop. i told myself that 17 was miles would be too much especially since i've yet to start running with water (fuel) & that 14 miles (another 7 mile loop) would be what i would gun for. i passed the 3, 4, & 5 mile loop points feeling good. i ended up running that last 7 miles just 5 minutes slower than the first. i was happy with that time because i told myself just to keep running regardless of how slow i was moving - just keep the feet moving forward brian. total run time for this morning 14 miles was 1 hour & 50 minutes.
i checked the AT&T website earlier this afternoon & registration spots are still open for the race. they suggest that the race will fill up the first/second week of january. until i officially sign up, i'm still up in the air on doing the race, but today i kept the option alive. my next long run needs to be 16 - 18 miles.... we'll see :)
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