Digging in

I announced to the world that I had entered the Auckland Marathon two and a half weeks ago. There was lots of YAY and AWESOME and GO YOU to start with, and then I'd run out of people to tell and there's nothing left but me, training and the occasional stranger who gets within earshot. It's dark almost all the time I'm not in work, the rain is frequent and the mornings frosty. It comes down to a mental game now, the first challenge of whether I can stick to my training program once the novelty has worn off and I have to find time to put my runs into my everyday life. It's time to dig in.

I decided at the start of this that the best way to make this whole adventure happen was to have no excuses. If the planner says run, I run. So if it says I need to run on a day I'm skating, I get to the rink early and run as a warm up. If I've no time, I run after training. Monday saw me running at quarter to ten at night, grinding it up a bastard of a hill in the kind of drizzle that chills to the bone. Today I was up at 5-ish, flew the length of the north island for an all day meeting, flew back, did my grocery shopping, came home, and went straight out for a 20 minute "easy" run. Tomorrow I need to either get up before 6am to get my run in or squish it in after coaching somewhere.

Great documentary about a bunch of unfit types training for Boston. 

What I'm discovering though, is that this discipline is bringing benefits, even at this early stage. There was no doubt in my mind on my flight home today that I was going to run when I got home. By the time I got home from training on Monday I'd mapped out a route in my head that I was fairly confident would take me half an hour at my "long run" pace (I was on the money, too). I'm discovering interesting little side roads, back streets and shortcuts. I used to take music with me but recently discovered that I run better and more efficiently when I don't have headphones in. That short period between starting to run and feeling out of breath is gradually increasing, and even when I'm breathing heavily I feel more comfortable with it. I'm feeling progress happening.

According to my planner, I'm 4% of the way through. This is oddly comforting. I like knowing that if I feel this good at 4%, 40% is going to feel awesome, let alone 100%!