A Marathon Effort: Step Two

The end of the last post...week two. Week three manifested into three forty minute runs. Week four, two forty five minute runs, ending with the run of my life, a ten mile run into the sunset. I have dreamed of running like this since I was a child. It didn't matter if I was running one hundred yards, in high school track, or three to five miles in the Marine Corps. I ran as hard as I could. It was never easy. Later, in college jogging class, for my p.e. credit, we even joked about it. I was always the guy who started fast and ended working really hard to keep up and not quite doing it. When I was a marine, I only fell out of a run one time, I was very, very, hung over.  Every run was murder. It didn't matter how far.

Now I do yoga. I can belly breathe. When I was a teenager, I wasn't able to make it to the next level of choir, because I could not diaphragm breathe. I really tried hard. I could not do it as a Marine, either. I remember just gasping for air, top breathing the whole way. No way could I breathe in my nose out my mouth. Finally, when I am forty one years old. I get it. That doesn't mean I breathe in my nose for my whole run. Not yet. I do it periodically. What I always do? Belly breathe.

My fourth week I ran about 10 miles in an hour and a half. Incredible. I felt so good the whole way. From the moment I moved into my current house, in Walla Walla, Wa., I have wanted this run, about three to four miles up from my house is a reservoir with trails and dirt roads around it.  The run back, is down a river walk and then the last mile kicking it to my house through Walla Walla. All told, about ten miles. Done on a late after noon. The first part of the run contains the uphill, with the reward of down along the river, into the sunset. Awesome. The week after? Wow. I was sore.

That was my first crash. I realized then that I was going to have to build my self back up. So, over a month, I climbed the hill again. Had an incredible ten mile run into the wheat fields and back, and on a windy day, so I could pretend I was in Hawaii, in the Iron Man. The next week, I wasn't too sore. But I still had a training crash. Now? I am back up to five mile runs again. My next training goal is a full half marathon, with no training crash this time. Do date for the real deal, is now 10/10/10. The Walla Walla Marathon. Which I think is appropriate.  Turns out the Marine Corps Marathon sells out fast. So, that puts me there in 2011, with the Walla Walla bracket, under my belt. Also, it seems to me, appropriate.