I’ll complete my fourth half marathon on Sunday. I made the decision to train for a half after running the Snowball Series earlier this year. “I already have begun the training,” I thought! Having completed three halves before, I had an idea of what training would look like, however I didn’t have a husband, kids, a business and numerous other responsibilities last time I trained. What I didn’t expect to find while training was parallels to my life. Here are three lessons I learned.
Lesson 1: Commitment is key
A good friend of mine knew I was on the fence about running the half and as I told her about my thoughts of signing up she told me (more than once I would add) that it wasn’t going to happen until I signed up for the race. She was the first person I texted after I signed up. Commitment is necessary if you are going to accomplish something. I couldn’t have kept saying I was going to do the race if I didn’t sign up (they wouldn’t let me run with those that committed). As Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Commitment is an act, not a word.”
Lesson 2: Support is the rocket start
If you’ve played a Mario Kart racing game, you might know that you can boost yourself out of start, giving yourself a head start out of the starting line. That’s exactly what support does. When I first mentioned the idea of running another half to my husband, Brandon, he was quick to support me. He’s been cheering me, commenting on how impressive my times have been and even brought the kids to a 10k race I was using as a training race. His support along with my kids, family and friends, have fueled me and given me the rocket start. I believe what Misty Copeland has said, “Anything is possible when you have the right people there to support you.”
Lesson 3: Hard work pays off
Someone once said, “The harder you work for something, the greater you’ll feel when you achieve it.” Over the last several weeks of training (I officially began February 18), I have gotten up early to get in runs before my husband left for work, gave up sleeping in on Saturdays for time spent on my long runs and have challenged myself with my time. As I’ve worked hard, I’ve begun to see more endurance as I’ve increased mileage each week and feel stronger than I have in a long while.
Sunday morning I’ll join countless people as we set off from Forest Park to wind through the streets until we reach the finish line Downtown. I’m ecstatic to finally cross that line that I’ve been working months toward and eager to remember these lessons I learned while training.
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