Week One Day One

What if a 65-year old runner wanted to try another marathon?  Would that be a crazy idea?

I have thought about this recently (see blog post of June 7, 2014) and I have even made some tentative, contingent plans.  Because if a man did decide to run a marathon in the Fall, Veterans Day weekend might be a good target date.  There are two good marathons that weekend - the Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon near Chattanooga, and the Townebank Outer Banks Marathon.  Both would be very satisfying to complete.  There are few things in this world for a runner that can match the feeling of accomplishment after training hard for sixteen weeks, enduring the long runs and the tempo runs and the 800s and the mile repeats and the hills, persevering through it all while staying balanced on that knife-edge of injury, and then crossing the finish line of a marathon.

Look at that lopsided, exhausted smile!  That is an absolutely spent, but supremely satisfied man.  But that is also a younger and faster man.  A man who, at the time, was a lot more confident that he could complete the ambitious task that he had set before himself.

If a person wanted to begin training, today would be the day on the calendar to do so.  Week One Day One of a 16-week training plan.

So I ran 10 miles today.  And I tried to push way back in my mind the little thought that kept cropping up toward the end of a humid and hilly run:  "Could I run 16.1 more miles?"