Why a Marathon?

I have been asked this a lot. I don’t know what I was thinking when I paid $75 (an early bird special-what a deal!) to commit myself to five months of running, in the winter, in Ohio. Did I mention I hate the treadmill? What about the marathon is so intriguing that thousands, maybe millions of people run them each year? I am still working out all of the reasons I wanted to do this. I am not a person who has “always wanted to do a marathon.” Nope. Not me. That was before I was a runner though.

Since I started running a few years ago, I had a change of heart about the whole idea of a marathon. I guess I want to see if I can do this. I read about them in Runner’s World and it seems like people have such a good time in marathons. In fact, do people who are not marathon runners (besides me) read Runners World? It seems like every other ad is for a marathon of some sort.

But I digress. Back to the reasons for doing this (which might be an indication of how hard it is to come up with a reason!) The Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon sounded meaningful. The date worked. My sister agreed to this insanity with me. I can fit the long runs into most of my weekends. I turned 30 this year. I loved running a half marathon, so why not double it? You get to eat A LOT of calories while training (this might be my sole motivation to be honest.) Someone told me “if you think you have it in you, you should do it.” I think I have it in me so I chose to listen to one person over almost everyone else. Read: everyone else=sensible people. People who say “that’s too far” or “too hard on the body” (I don’t think they know about the calories you get to eat!) or even just “why?” I don’t know. There isn’t usually a good reason for doing something as crazy as a marathon. I guess there are several reasons for each step. I’ll start with “I think I have it in me.” I hope I have it in me. Let’s get the training going and find out.