Finally!  Here it is my next post.  It’s been months since my last post and the reason has a lot to do with why I write this post. The two are related.  My last several posts were about my participation in the Chicago Marathon last October.  This post is about my participation in the Bayshore Marathon next week in Traverse City Michigan.

The marathon route is one of the most scenic routes of any as it travels 13 mile up the easterly side of Grand Traverse Bay then returns and finishes on the track at Traverse City HS. This is a flat and fast route, a favorite marathon of many runners.  It will be my first Bayshore.

Despite my diligent training last season preparing to take on Chicago I did not finish the marathon very strong.  That finish was my inspiration to enter the Bayshore Marathon.  My initial goal was to train diligently and finish the marathon in 3 hrs and 20 some minutes (3:28 would be sufficiently awesome).  Then reality hit.

Instead of starting my first month of training, I sat out most of November due to a small stress fracture in my foot.  There was also the tragic loss of my baby sister’s husband in late November.  In December I took advantage of a career opportunity and returned to a firm where I had previously worked several years ago.  This move was a very positive move in many ways including being training friendly, nonetheless, the new job keeps me very busy but all in a good way.  Before I knew  it two months of training opportunities were lost along with my waistline.

Then there was Mother Nature and our frigid winter (yes I did run outdoors at -14F).  It seemed like all winter I was never able to get into a training rhythm during the week and my long runs on the weekends were more like medium runs.  Then just as I was able to string together a reasonable training week or two, I stumbled on a patch of ice and needed to give my injured foot a week of rest. Following a week of decent running, I caught some form of a nasty bug that was going around.  So, you can start to see the picture of my training?

I was down to the bare minimum amount of training time required to finish a marathon. I can report that much of this time has been fruitful. I raced two half marathons and actually finished well but they were difficult efforts.  My week day efforts improved.  Still,  my weekly mileage of only 30-35 miles per week less than recommended minimums of 40 plus miles per week.

All of this adds up to the title of this post.  I do have many lingering doubts about running a marathon 6 days from now!  So why post this?  Because earlier this morning I read an article about overcoming negative thoughts during a marathon.   Among a number of methods was a suggestion to make your goal public. Tell as many people as you can about your marathon, your goals, your thoughts, your experiences. So I am putting this out to the entire world!

I may not run a 3:20 something marathon, I may not win my age group, but I will run a marathon, I will run a SMART marathon, I will enjoy the experience, I will celebrate afterwards, and I will anticipate the next marathon!

Stay tuned world and take a peek at this marathon: http://www.bayshoremarathon.org

See you back here sometime next week?  Be sure to sign-up to follow my blog posts for updates. In the meantime,  thanks for visiting and continue to RUN HAPPY!

Lee