Race #5 (July) -- MARATHON!

Okay, so maybe, "Race #5" isn't the right term to use, since the word "race" makes it sound like I was competing against someone else and, truth is, I was the only runner in the event!

But still, I am officially now a MARATHON SURVIVOR!!!

I mentioned, a few months ago, that I'd been wanting to run a marathon, but wasn't sure I could really handle it.  So it was just a "someday" goal.  Instead, I made specific plans to run smaller races this summer--one per month.  (Blogged about that HERE.)  I ran a 5K in March, another in April, another in May, and a 10K in June.

This month, however, there was a problem: all of the local races were planned on weekends when I would be out of town.  So it looked like my run for this month would be homemade.  And since I was going to be doing it on my own anyway, I decided not to a 5- or 10K.  Heck, I do that every morning in my "regular" run.  I wanted to do something different.

So I planned the First Annual Makeshift Marathon: I mapped out a 1-mile track in my neighborhood and set a date (yesterday) to run it 26.2 times.

I expected it to be hard.  I expected pain.

But I had NO idea.

The first 16 miles weren't bad.  The last 10: woah!  Much much much harder.  Around mile 19 or 20, my knees were killing me.  I'd sort of forgotten that I've had bad knees since I was a teenager--or maybe I just underestimated how much of a problem it would be.  Bottom line is that I finished, but I definitely had to walk the last few miles.

And I've been hobbling around ever since.


I seriously hope the first part of this t-shirt slogan is true:

Otherwise, the name of this historic race will be changed to:

The First AND LAST Annual Makeshift Marathon.

MOJ