Uh oh, Now I've Done it!

Congratulations and good lock to you!! You can do this! I ran a 5k turkey trot in Nov 02. That was the farthest I had run, and boy was it slow and hard. I was not a runner. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon the following year in less than 5 hours. That's not fast for many people but I was proud of it! I did walk some (water stations). I never hit a wall. It was honestly one of my proudest personal moments!! I learned the hard way about needing some sort of nutrition during long runs, never to eat rich dinners the night before a long run, and to hydrate during the run (that sounds so obvious but I hated to carry anything-let's just say I learned to get over that, lol). You can do this-one mile at a time you have plenty of time to ramp up slowly..

This brings up some good things to think about.

I trained with a charity so they took care of fuel and water stops for long runs. Sometimes they were manned stops, sometimes they would label a cooler for us and leave it on a street corner, and this was in Boston. When I had to do a long run on my own, if I didn't want to carry the water, I did a loop and left drinks in a small cooler by the side of the trail or at my car.

I'd consider getting a book that covers fueling your runs. If you don't eat well for the runs and during the long runs they can be really miserable.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything. I know it is hard not to think about time, but really try to let it go. Say I was thinking 5 hours and all my training runs were on target for 4:35. But then the day of the run it is insanely hot, and I finish in 5:15 or longer. Now I'm disappointed with myself. The disappointment overshadows that I'VE JUST RUN A MARATHON!!! I've been to two marathons that had record heat on the day, one was Disney's and one was Chicago's. There were lots of disappointed first timers. And they should have been happy (especially Chicago where officials closed down the route (because of the heat) if runners hadn't reached a point by a certain time.) Some first time runners who got past the blockade were bummed with their times. I thought it was silly since hundreds of people didn't even get to finish because they didn't make it past the blockade. Now those people I was bummed for.