Joining the Marathon World

Though I haven't run "for fun" in almost a year, if not more, I went on a long run today to begin my preparation for two long runs that I hope to take on in 2008 - The Great Race of Agoura Hills Chesebro Half Marathon in April and the Disneyland Half Marathon in August.


Because it was my first time back running in a very long time, I decided not to be too ambitious and that I would start out slow. My intentions of starting out slow turned into a winding, hill-filled 4.8 mile round trip from my apartment to Fox Studios. My legs are in pain and I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to walk at the Rose Bowl tomorrow, but I was really happy that I did it. I finished off my run with some vegan pad thai from The Vegan Joint here in Palms and I'm hoping to go to sleep as soon as the New Year hits so I can be well-rested for Rose Bowl traffic tomorrow.

As I ran with my iPod shuffle to the tunes of Carrie Underwood, 50 Cent, Rakim, Rascal Flatts, Kanye West, and Eminem, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there is a really large unspoken community of runners here in Los Angeles. People gave me a thumbs up when they passed me (and people did because I wasn't going very fast) or a smile at the very least. And yes, I almost got hit by a car and I basically was jogging at the pace of a fast walk on uphills portions, but it felt really good to be part of this friendly community. It didn't matter how fast I was going or they were going, people just seemed supportive and I'm sure that this is the feeling that many people get on race day with the clapping crowd cheering along the way. It sounds stupid, but it really made me feel good and made it a lot easier for me to keep going because I felt like these people accepted me into their mobile community.

I know that you're supposed to train a solid 3 times a week, but I think I can realistically get in a short run during the week and then a long run on the weekends. If I did 4.8 miles the first time while being completely out of shape, 13.1 miles doesn't seem like it would be too bad (famous last words). I hope that I'll be able to run a full marathon one day and it'll be a huge accomplishment.

Running a half-marathon isn't really a life goal for me, but it's rather something that I want to see if I can do. It's kind of like when I went periods of time without eating red meat, or my current 3 year caffeine drought. Sometimes, you just want to see if you can do something and this is my new thing. Hopefully, I'll have cool pictures of some medals to share and it'll be one more thing that I've done that I've wondered if I could do.