My Marathon Undertaking

I have long wanted to run a full marathon. There's something that seems so... you know, MASSIVE about it, and I love the romantic idea of miles and miles of endurance and tenacity and enjoying beautiful settings... I just so want to be a runner (I think it's an identity issue I struggle with - probably that whole "achievement=value" thing I seem to be running into a lot...), and it seems like my criteria for that are always shifting.

My latest shift has been to that of a marathoner.

Thus, in pursuit of my dream of actually calling myself a runner, I'm training for a marathon.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I was inspired by my cousin Valerie, who completed her first marathon last year. Valerie has played sports her whole life and been super active as an athlete, but she didn't do "running" just for the sake of it. However, she's been converted (yay!) and she talked me into training at the same time as her over Christmas.

Since I've run several half marathons (some for which I've trained significantly more consistently than others!), I know the basic gist of preparing to run a marathon (ie: LOTS of time!), but I've always felt like with a half, if you're in semi-decent shape, you can pull the distance out of sheer determination and at least finish!

Marathons seem like more serious business. Which is probably why I want to do it.

(Have I mentioned how I like a good challenge?)

Anyhow, my sister and her husband are prepping to go to the Solomon Islands as missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators. That's also a BIG undertaking. Even bigger than a marathon - it's like prepping for a LIFE marathon! I want to support them and help them get there, so I figured I needed to get creative with how to raise awareness of what they're doing and (hopefully) raise money for them to go toward their support and moving costs.

Running seemed like a good solution.

Rather than running the marathon in June I've been training for (which has a, like, $100 entry fee, which is actually pretty cheap for a marathon!), I decided I'd run a marathon... but I was going to just map out the distance in my community and tell as many people as possible what I was doing, and invite people to contribute toward Meg and Andrew in conjunction with my run. I'm sending what I would have spent on an entry fee to them, and I invited people to pay $1/mile for the run.

Here's the link to the facebook event if you're interested: Fly the Coop FundRun Marathon

The response has been significantly more than I expected. Our family's dear friends (and also Wycliffe missionaries), Russ and Lynda, offered to match the first five people who give $2/mile ($52) toward Meg and Andrew, which was just met today... which means that Meg and Andrew have at least $500 plus my $100 coming there way - and a number of other people have said they're going to give the $1/mile amount too. (I didn't really have a "goal" amount set that I was trying to raise for them when I started, but now I think it would be SO cool if this marathon brought in $1,000. We'll see how close we get!)

Seriously, though - how cool are the people I know?! The outpour of love and support is SO cool! I even have had several people offer to run legs of the race WITH me on the big day (June 16th), which is super cool!

So, I've been training like I mean it. Which basically just means that I'm being far more consistent with my training schedule than I usually am. This week, for example, I ran a 9 mile distance on Sunday (4 miles of which were UP HILL with an elevation gain of about 1,000 feet, at the END! Thank you, dear boyfriend, for living at the TOP of the highest hill in the area! :-)), and then 3 easy miles on Wednesday, 5 quick miles on Thursday (quick for me, at least!), and another 3 pretty rapid miles today. I get to do 7 miles on Sunday.

I think that's the coolest thing about training for this run so far. I actually feel like I've recaptured the JOY of running in conjunction with a good challenge. Often I've felt like I'm either running for fun, or I'm running to train - but they cannot be synonymous. That hasn't been the case this time around. Maybe that'll come later, but for now, I genuinely have been enjoying my runs. I get to listen to podcasts and think and pray and watch beautiful scenery.

It's sort of like what I always imagined long distance running should be, in fact. And that's fantastic!

Running past the Colosseum...

Before my clock turns to midnight I need to write!

Today's been relatively productive. I'm still trying to avoid getting REALLY sick, keeping my throat and head to a dull ache is the goal, so I turned off my alarm this morning and tried to sleep a little longer than usual. I ended up not really sleeping past 9AM, so I read homework under my two wool blankets - it was cold last night!

Class, turned in a paper, came home and made lunch and dough for sourdough bread (it ended up being a complete flop, but the house smells wonderfully sourdough-ish... It just didn't rise), then worked on the presentation I'm giving tomorrow. I had some trouble finding sources, so I'm trying to pull this thing together still now, at quarter to midnight. I did take a break and go for a run, though, and my route took me by the Colosseum. It was pretty much dark by the time I left, but I'd never actually been by the Colosseum after dark. They have lights inside and spotlights on it, so it's quite lovely (you can check it out on google images - I didn't have my camera with me, obviously)... Keys, ID card, phone, and iPod shuffle are about all I care to try holding.

I copied the image above off google because I liked the overview of it. I ran on the far side of the building - the area where the cars don't drive. My route brought me up along that main road from the left, but I broke off from the road about where the road becomes visible as it leaves the treest. It's all a pedestrian area behind the colosseum, and then I joined up with the road again on the right side and followed it as it fades off into the distance on the top right of the photo.

In other news, Orbitz is having sales on flights... $650 round trip tickets from PDX to Rome for the dates I typed in for March... Anyone want to come for a visit? :-)

Moonlight run

I went running today, after coming in from doing farmwork. I wasn't feeling ambitious at all. I haven't run ALL week (I know, I know, HORRIBLE... but, since 4 members of the family were gone Monday-Thursday, I didn't feel nearly as much of a need to have some solitary time, since I was already getting a fair amount.), although I did finally go walking with Mom yesterday. Between the snow and the cold, every day I think "I'll run later" and then it gets dark and I think "wow, it is way too cold" and then I get ready for bed and think "OK, tomorrow I'll go." And then I go through it all over again! So, I finally decided TODAY I would go. TODAY I would break my stupid habit of the week and get out there and get some exercise!

Unfortunately, I didn't go after church when I should have, so I had to wait until after I'd completed my 2 hours out on the farm. It was getting dark, but I have to go ahead and run after dark this time of year occasionally, so I really couldn't use that as an excuse. It took me awhile, and, like I said, I really had no ambition, but I finally got outside.

The funny thing is about running for me is it gets harder to get back to running the longer I wait between runs. But when I do eventually get to it, all it takes is about 1/2 a mile and I'm glad I'm out there, and after 2 1/2 miles, I'm feeling like I'm absolutely insane for not doing it more regularly. Usually I stop at the 3 or 3 1/2 mile length, but sometimes I'll push it up to 4 or 4 1/2 or even 5. It's been two summers, I think, since I did a full 6 miles running straight, although I'll run 3 or 4 miles, then walk a couple with my Mom.

Ayhow, even after dark today, the run was... delicious! The moonlight shone brilliantly on the road, I could clearly see my shadow, and I didn't hardly even need the flashlight. The only time I used it was when a car was passing me and when I heard rustling in the grass. Up at the top of the road I run, there is a field with fairly tall grass. Everytime I run by it after dark, I think of Ghosts and the Darkness.... I'm just WAITING for a lion to jump out and tear me apart! Today I heard the rustling, flipped my flashlight on, and cleared my throat, loudly, a couple time. I picked up my pace for the last 1/2 mile or so at that point.

For the last 1/4 mile, I picked up my pace a LOT and tried to sprint it! I'm certainly not the world's fastest sprinter, however, I was pleased with my efforts. It made the blood in my head pound and my breathing start to wheeze a bit, and my legs were aching just a tad, and I think of all those things as being GOOD for me! And, it gets that heart rate up and cleans out all those veins.... who WOULD'T find that to be a good thing

OK, that's all for now. I've got my last paper of the quarter to write up, but I think I might take a quick nap, since my eyes keep falling shut on here!