I had been making progress with my half marathon training. At least it felt like I was making progress. Kabluey is playing in an outdoor soccer tournament near PGE Park, so I have been going to her weekly games and running at the track. As of Sunday, I am up to five miles. I’m happy about this because it’s about two miles more than I typically run at any one time, and it also puts me in good shape to do the 8k course at the Shamrock Run in two weeks (which I am doing primarily because the t-shirt is cool).

On Monday, however, my sense of satisfaction took a couple of hits. During a routinely boring morning meeting I asked my co-worker, who is doing her first half marathon around the same time as me, how far she has been running. She told me that she is up to nine miles. Fine. She is an over-achiever. I, quite possibly, am not. I can accept this. But then she said that according the training schedule, I should be up to seven miles for my long run.

A couple things jumped out at me in that statement, starting with “training schedule”. I know that there are a ton of training schedules out there, but I consciously decided I didn’t need one since it seems to be pretty obvious that in order to finish the race I just need to keep running more and more each week. It’s not exactly rocket science. But if I did have a training schedule, evidently I would know about things like “long runs”. Notice the use of the plural form of “run”. This implies that I should be running more than one day a week. Hmmm. As of right now, I execute one lone run a week. This got me thinking that I need to retool my regimen. Maybe there is something to these training schedules after all.

Unfortunately, any new-found enthusiasm for an increase in weekly running was immediately squashed upon entering the house on Monday night. I opened the front door and instantly my eyes were drawn to the living room floor, where I found this:

My sister gave me that hat not long after I moved to Oregon. It’s a great hat- nice long bill to keep the sun off my skin-cancer-prone face, mesh back so my head doesn’t get too hot, and it’s made up of my favorite orange and gray color combination. I’ve left that hat lying around for years, and never once has Riley even noticed it (I know it was Riley that did this. He of course has a long history of destroying my personal belongings. Plus, had Sigh done it, she would have meticulously chewed the hat into identically sized symmetrical pieces, then placed them all in a neat pile on my side of the bed with a handwritten note next to them that said “Give me back my mom or there will be others”). I can only assume that the reason Riley went for the hat on this particular day is because he overheard me the night before going on at some length about how much I loved wearing that hat while I run, and he thought to himself, if my mom loves it so much, it must be delicious.

So to sum up my Monday, I learned that I need to run longer, and more often, and with a sub-standard hat. This may be more than I can bear, but I will do my best to soldier on.

Tags: bad dog, half marathon

Looking back over my list of goals for the year, the item that I labeled easiest to accomplish is actually the thing I have made the least amount of progress on- running a half marathon.

Running is inherently evil. It’s hard on the body, a slow way to get around (if you are me) and super irritating to do in the rain, or cold, or wind, or scorching sun. Additionally, I run weird. If I run for more than a few minutes I get a bruise on the inside of my left ankle. I do not believe this indicates optimal form. But I am pretty good about working out, generally speaking, so training for a longer race seemed like a perfectly attainable goal. For whatever reason (chronic fatigue? pesky cold? deep-seated laziness?) I have not been good about consistently running. I have also not been good about biking or swimming, which should make my annual triathlon super fun.

But back to the running. I was having breakfast with my mom over the weekend and I casually mentioned that I was thinking of doing a half marathon. Her response, to my horror, was: “I was thinking of doing one too”. So now I HAVE to do it. My mom is 65-years-old. I cannot be outdone by her. She is strong, determined, and in good shape, but still it would be humiliating to fail at this while she succeeds.

This wouldn’t be the first time I have done something just to keep up with my mom. She is the reason I did my first sprint triathlon. She decided it would be fun and took the liberty of signing us up for a race. When I pointed out that I didn’t know how to swim, she defensively told me about all the money she and my dad wasted on swimming lessons when I was little, and how it wasn’t her fault that some kids just aren’t natural in the water. Then she told me I had 12 weeks to figure it out before race day. So I did.

And now, I must run. Not because I want to. Not even because I announced it on this silly blog and feel compelled to keep my fake internet promise. But because if there is even the tiniest chance that my mom will follow through and complete a half marathon, I want to be there by her side when she crosses the finish line. (Ok, technically, I want to be 2 steps ahead of her).

Tags: half marathon, training