I have heard people talk about the marathon being a good metaphor for life. I always thought of it in that rough patches come and go, and you learn to be though, and fight through whatever life throws at you. But today I was thinking of what life is like and in a hilarious way it is erie how similar it really is to life! This was my thought process on my drive home from work.
Think of the marathon in that each mile is like 4 years of your life.
Mile 1- We have doubts; "can I walk? Maybe I should just pull myself up on this here table and hold on." But eventually we can walk (when the gun goes off) and while our fresh tapered legs may have some baby horse, wobbly qualities we find that we can do it!
Mile 2-3- We are now working our way from 5-12 years old. Figuring it out, finding what pace we can hold, and taking in the world around us! Learning our way through things, like the first water station! Absorbing like a sponge!
Mile 4- 13-16 years, we might be getting a little arrogant here, we have this thing figured out and no one can tell us different. This is fun! We might even throw in a rebellious streak in there. But like real teens Mom tells you to slow down and ultimately we listen. Just in time to thank her in our 20's.
Mile 5-7 Hello 20's We are in a groove now! Having a good time, enjoying some course side entertainment as much as we do night life. Shoot we might even be singing along at this point!
Mile 8-10 We have reached the 30's and this is where we can make or break our lives as well as our race! We are faced with the choice of saving up for retirement or spending with reckless abandon and getting that car/clothes/house we always wanted. But be careful here. If you don't save enough it will come back to bite you in say your 70's! It's easy to let loose, but it might not always be for the best.
Mile 11-12 Our 40's some good years. Still in control, although if we lived it up in our 30's we might be feeling something similar to a little too much sort of hangover! We are pretty set in our work load now and more than likely a little smarter than in our 30's
Mile 13-15 50 comes in before we know it and at this point we are making a lot less mistakes than we were only 5 miles ago. Keeping things a little more even kilter and trying to stay on PR pace! Maybe only going out once every 2 weeks is a better idea!
Mile 16-17 In our 60's things aren't as easy as they were earlier. However we are so much wiser! Now we are telling ourselves pretty rational things like, just keep plugging away, we are doing fine.
Mile 18-19 The 70's things start getting tough, we have to work a little harder to do what we used to. No problem I can work harder. Here is where our reckless abandon in our 30's can come back to haunt us! If we spent a little too much we will find ourselves spent, empty and without the saved up "retirement" falling apart at the seams.
Mile 20-21 Our 80's are here and now my feet hurt so bad I am running along the paint line on the road because it is softer than the pavement. Much like holding on to the rail of stairs for dear life being ever so careful with each step, not to slip, and break a hip. Everything is starting to take effort now.
Mile 22-24 We are in our 90's struggling for every step, but plugging along knowing the finish line is just around the corner. We hold on to all the help around us we can get, after all changing your own diaper is a challenge!
Mile 25-26 At this point we just want it to be over and low and behold when we finally get there we are surrounded by friends and family celebrating what all we have accomplished!
So today I thought about it and life really is like one big exciting marathon complete, with rough patches, amazing stretches, family, friends, volunteers, and competitors! It was really funny in my mind I hope you enjoyed a little look into my thoughts!
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Windy Half While Keeping My Rebel Side In Check
This past Saturday was the Capital City Half Marathon! I was excited to get in my first half in almost 3 years, and enjoy the excitement of racing on the roads which I love. I was more excited from a coaching standpoint as Ryan was also running and debuting at the distance.
Friday night we headed down to columbus and stayed with Ryan's family. We went to bed early so we were ready for the 5 am wakeup call. By 7 am we were warming up in downtown columbus and both getting pretty antsy for the race to start. Ry seemed a bit nervous, but I felt confident in what he could do. My anxiety was more for the fact that I would be using this race as a workout. I knew that not allowing myself to race was going to be tough. I was talking myself into the race plan over and over and over and over again! lol! I knew as soon as the gun went off my rebel side would want to show up and start pushing, so I had to give myself a talking' to! I promised myself I would execute the plan given to me by my coach and nothing more.
So the gun went off and I did all I could to keep myself contained for 10 miles. I did a pretty good job of keeping the miles in the 5:50's for the first 4. When we turned onto High street we hit a pretty strong head wind, that we would be into for the majority of the remaining part of the race, and I had to make a decision. Knowing the goal was to run the last 5k hard, I maintained effort and tried not to let the splits bother me. I ran the next 6 miles around 6:00. Numerous times my mind drifted to Ryan's race, with the hopes that he had other bodies to work with in this wind. I was on my own, and to be honest getting pretty pissed off. But before I knew it I was at 10 miles! I started pushing and finished up running 5:51, 5:44, 5:36. I was happy with the finish. I felt I had executed the race plan pretty much the way Glenn had asked me to. What was best was I knew I was fitter for it! I felt thankful to have kept my rebel side in check! Ryan had waited at the finish for me, which I was very thankful for, since it took a lot not to ask people I knew during the race how he was doing! He had placed 2nd in 1:10:15. I thought that was a great debut in the conditions! I was a proud coach. I had won my race in 1:18:06, but I was much more excited about Ryan's.
We cooled down with some friends and laughed about how upset we felt toward the wind. Haha. I get seriously mad, like I am holding back yelling at it! I would have to put up a parental advisory on my blog if I shared my thoughts toward those gusts! I also would have looked insane yelling to the wind! Eh, it was still a lot of fun when it came down to it. So many family and friends came out to watch us race it really made the day a nice one to remember!
Training has continued to go well and I am becoming more and more mentally tough, which is exciting. I am pumped to get back on the track with Nicole tomorrow and get in another workout and start chasing after our goal for the USA Championships in Duluth next month! We are chasing down some big PR's so check out the results on June 22nd.
a picture of the finish
Friday night we headed down to columbus and stayed with Ryan's family. We went to bed early so we were ready for the 5 am wakeup call. By 7 am we were warming up in downtown columbus and both getting pretty antsy for the race to start. Ry seemed a bit nervous, but I felt confident in what he could do. My anxiety was more for the fact that I would be using this race as a workout. I knew that not allowing myself to race was going to be tough. I was talking myself into the race plan over and over and over and over again! lol! I knew as soon as the gun went off my rebel side would want to show up and start pushing, so I had to give myself a talking' to! I promised myself I would execute the plan given to me by my coach and nothing more.
So the gun went off and I did all I could to keep myself contained for 10 miles. I did a pretty good job of keeping the miles in the 5:50's for the first 4. When we turned onto High street we hit a pretty strong head wind, that we would be into for the majority of the remaining part of the race, and I had to make a decision. Knowing the goal was to run the last 5k hard, I maintained effort and tried not to let the splits bother me. I ran the next 6 miles around 6:00. Numerous times my mind drifted to Ryan's race, with the hopes that he had other bodies to work with in this wind. I was on my own, and to be honest getting pretty pissed off. But before I knew it I was at 10 miles! I started pushing and finished up running 5:51, 5:44, 5:36. I was happy with the finish. I felt I had executed the race plan pretty much the way Glenn had asked me to. What was best was I knew I was fitter for it! I felt thankful to have kept my rebel side in check! Ryan had waited at the finish for me, which I was very thankful for, since it took a lot not to ask people I knew during the race how he was doing! He had placed 2nd in 1:10:15. I thought that was a great debut in the conditions! I was a proud coach. I had won my race in 1:18:06, but I was much more excited about Ryan's.
We cooled down with some friends and laughed about how upset we felt toward the wind. Haha. I get seriously mad, like I am holding back yelling at it! I would have to put up a parental advisory on my blog if I shared my thoughts toward those gusts! I also would have looked insane yelling to the wind! Eh, it was still a lot of fun when it came down to it. So many family and friends came out to watch us race it really made the day a nice one to remember!
Training has continued to go well and I am becoming more and more mentally tough, which is exciting. I am pumped to get back on the track with Nicole tomorrow and get in another workout and start chasing after our goal for the USA Championships in Duluth next month! We are chasing down some big PR's so check out the results on June 22nd.
a picture of the finish
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