Hey y’all! Here’s a little update on how marathon training is going. If I remember correctly, the last time I talked about training, my calf was still bugging me and I was forced into taking a little time off. I’m not for sure exactly what was going on with it, but my dad said I more than likely had a small tear in the muscle and that’s what was causing all the pain. Well, I’m now feeling a lot better and back to training hard! I’m afraid to say that it’s COMPLETELY back to normal – there are some runs where it is a little sore yet – but with lots of stretching, icing, and the heating pad, it’s very manageable.

For those who have been following all the WARC members on Facebook and our training journey, this weekend marks the completion of week eleven! We have seven more weeks of training and then we’ll have the big race day at the end of September. Whether we have voiced it out loud or not – most of us definitely have! – we are starting to feel very tired. We’re over halfway done, we’ve been putting in lots and lots of long runs, some of us have been hurt, and all of us are feeling the fatigue. Not only do we have a long run every weekend – this weekend is 16 miles!!! – but some of us are following a plan that involves a long run in the middle of the week as well. I challenge all of you to get up and run eight miles at 5 in the morning and NOT feel super tired at work! Lucky for me, my work schedule has been very flexible this summer, and I’ve been able to take a half day here and there. It definitely helps with recouping! Next week when in service starts, and the week after when school starts might be a different story … pray for me!!

I’ve been thinking about it throughout this whole journey, and especially Friday morning when I went for my four mile run by myself: I am so glad I have so many awesome friends who are doing this with me. Four miles may seem like a lot to non-runners, but it now feels like nothing compared to some of the other runs I’ve been on. At the same time, though, it felt like this run dragged on FOREVER. Why? Because I was by myself! The whole run I was thinking how much faster these runs go when I have people with me. We’re able to vent, share exciting events, and solve the world’s problems on these runs. Even the really long runs go so much quicker when you have friends with you!

My dad has said forever that he’s wanted to do a marathon with his kids. I can honestly say if I hadn’t joined WARC, it wouldn’t be happening now, and odds are, it may have never been something I wanted to do. I’ve said it before, up until a year or so ago, the thought of doing a marathon felt completely insane. I had no desire whatsoever to do one. Then I joined WARC, and it didn’t seem as crazy. I started doing more long runs, and my half marathon count is up to six now. And even though those are hard, they’re definitely not as scary as they used to be. Almost everyone in run club has done one now, so I can’t be the only one who hasn’t, right?? Who says peer pressure is always a bad thing?!

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that when you are surrounded by amazing people who share the same passion as you do, it makes it so much more enjoyable. If running a marathon sounds idiotic to you, I challenge you to join our run club, and within a few months you’ll probably change your mind! Surround yourself with positive people, and I promise you something as challenging as training for a marathon will be a lot more fun. Same thing goes for anything in life. Trying to reach any kind of challenging goal is so much easier when you have support from friends and family. If you don’t have that support in your life, then you need to surround yourself with more positive people.

Reach out to me! I’ll be your personal cheerleading squad if that’s what you need. Keeping yourself motivated isn’t always easy, and no one said you had to do it yourself. So don’t! Reach out to any of us, or join WARC and find out how fun we are for yourself! 😉

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger