Refocusing

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! I am so excited!!! Ohmygawd so excited!!! Want to know why? Because it’s birthday ice cream cake month!!! June is hands down my most favourite month of the year, a month I prepare for for 11 straight months. With myself and two siblings sharing this birthday month, as well as my grandma and neice, and all but one of us loving Dairy Queen ice cream cake, you’ve kind got to train for it – that’s a lot of ice cream cake eating! What? Did you really think I ran those two marathons for my health? or because I actually love running for nearly 5 hours straight? Hell no! It’s all for the ice cream cake my friends! Happy almost birthday to me!!!

FYI: This is NOT the optimal size!

After writing my last post, I was reminded at just how amazing my blogging community is here. Every one of your comments touched me to the core of my heart, and I sincerely thank you. Although I found it interesting that about 95 per cent of you don’t seem to believe I’m done with marathons … maybe you’re right. I should know by now never to say never especially after shouting out “never again” with less than a kilometre to go in my last marathon and then just two days later planning how I could do better. And while I’m most definitely not at that stage, my initial stance on doing another marathon has somewhat softened – not because I enjoy running them, but because, as many of you noted, I really would like to kick its ass.

Don’t take this the wrong way, because I was honestly happy that I was able to shave 00:10:17 off my first marathon time, that’s huge, I know that. But what I wasn’t happy with is that I felt like I gave up, like I let Marathon get the better of me, let him beat me, and that pisses me off. Like even in the last 700 metres, when I knew I’d only be needing to run a few minutes tops, I couldn’t find the gumption within me, not even a crumb of it, to keep going, I was still taking walk breaks. It wasn’t until I saw that finish line that I found another level to push. It was like a carbon copy ending to my first marathon, except this time I wasn’t physically falling apart. Not exactly the way a competitive princess such as myself wanted to end things.

So, that all being said I have a couple things to figure out before I can even think about attempting another marathon:

1. I need to figure out my race-day (and long run) stomach issues, whether it’s the gels, which I didn’t have any of on Sunday, if it’s food in general, or if it’s my nervous belly spiraling me into tumult. And if it is my nervous belly, I need to figure out how to get rid of those damn nerves.
2. I also need to figure out how to push through the exhaustion, how to dig deeper, how to fight through the physical and mental pain when all I want to do is stop.

If I can solve those two puzzles, then maybe I’ll contemplate another.

It’s not enough to just finish with a smile.

In the meantime, I plan to take my marathon aggression out on the halfs.
New goal: A sub 2:00:00 baby!!!