The “Seven nights of Fonzie” blogs are unedited before a live audience.
What have I learned this week? I have to make some changes in my life, because I’m not doing enough with it. I need to find an artistic outlet, other than writing, which hardly feels like art, and I need to change career paths at all costs, because I’m not doing myself any favors.
So what else is there?
Well, there’s at least one more thing I need to do, and it’s probably the biggest challenge facing me. I don’t even like thinking about it because I don’t know if I can push myself to do it again, or if I can realistically expect to accomplish the goal within the next year. It’s time for me to run another marathon.
I ran one, if you can call it that, in 2000. Doug and I trained for it and put forth a modest effort. We didn’t join a running club or training program and we didn’t research training regimens. We just tried our best to work up to a marathon distance in time for the Twin Cities Marathon. I was well conditioned to run 16 miles, but I didn’t have what I needed to run 26 miles successfully. I finished, but it took a little more than 5 hours to complete. Doug and I didn’t plan on running together the entire time, but we did, for the most part.
I knew I wanted to do it again, armed with better knowledge of what it takes to succeed, but somehow I never found the inspiration. I’d like to see if I can finish a marathon in 4 hours, but more than that, I’d like to simply do it again. Yet I don’t know if I have the commitment and drive. That’s a goal I will have to ponder further.
They say nobody runs only two marathons in their life. Some people run one, are satisfied with achieving their goal and never run another one. Those that decide they have to push themselves to try a second time don’t usually stop after two because they become hooked by it.
Decisions, decisions. As it is, I couldn’t run a mile right now to save my soul, no matter how many miles I have bicycled. I think the hardest part about running a marathon is having to start from scratch.
