The time has come at last . . .

In October 2005 my brother Matt got home from his mission. Naturally, we had plenty of family visiting for the occasion. Not sure how we got on the topic but my cousin Greg started talking about the marathon that he had recently completed. I don't know what Greg said that inspired or motivated me but I knew at that point that I wanted to run a marathon. Can't tell you why. I hated running. I didn't understand how someone could ever run more than one mile. Regardless, I suddenly found myself wanting to run 26.2 of them.

At this time, I was in the habit of going to the gym with my dad several times a week. The majority of our workouts was weightlifting, but the week after deciding to run a marathon, I ditched the weights -- and my dad -- and spent all of my gym time on the treadmill. A month later I ran my first 10-K on Thanksgiving.

I really enjoyed running but I didn't know much about the sport. That's why a few weeks later I ended up hurting my foot during my first 8 mile run. It took about eight weeks before I was able to run but by then I had lost a lot of motivation and I was out of shape so running became so much harder for me than before.

However, I still never gave up on my desire to run a marathon. A few years went by and I completed several 10-Ks, ran on an intramural cross country team, and last June, I ran a half-marathon. Ever since I hurt my foot back in '05 I've been scared of over-training and maybe haven't pushed myself as hard as I should. So, it's time for me to be a man. In other words, it's time for this:





This is the half-marathon I did last year. This year, I'll be doing the full marathon or I'll injure myself trying (hopefully the former). It takes place on June 13 this year (Rivers Cuomo's birthday), which will be awesome since it gives me an excuse to visit Rexburg during the summer. The training program I've decided to use lasts 18 weeks. This means I officially start training on Monday.