With less than a week away I am starting to feel the nerves and the anticipation for the Indianapolis Mini-Marathon.  This is going to be a first for me in this event.  For that matter it is my first race ever unless you want to count the sixth grade olympics that we used to do for gym class.

This has been a very interesting journey for me to get to this point.  I started running with my wife, Wendy, last year in about April.  I resisted and gave a lot of excuses of why I didn’t have time or desire to run.  The first was that I was totally out of shape and couldn’t even run one mile in under 1o minutes unless I was being chased by a dog  I am pretty sure that the first few times that I went “running” with her I think I ran for eight or nine minutes and then walked for five or six…rinse and repeat.  So my 30 minute run was really about a 18-19 minute jog.  I pretty much hated it.  I have never been a “runner” in my entire life, so the thought of running because I would have fun with it was about as far from my vocabulary as possible.  But this is where it really helps to start training with someone who can keep you motivated and accountable.  There have been quite a few times where one of us has not wanted to run and the other person picked up the slack to make the other person go.  Of course after you are done running you are always glad that you did instead of the old “tomorrow” excuse.  We also joined the Club Fitness 24 Gym in Kokomo.  So that was another great decision.  This kept us both hitting the treadmills on days that were not the best conditions outside.  Wendy has used some of the fitness classes, but I have not gotten that far yet.  I am going to try to start using more of the circuit training to add to my workouts.  I have talked with a trainer there, so I am thinking about that for this summer.

This is my profile sheet from my RunKeeper app from my iPhone.  It has been an awesome addition to my running.  I started logging my training at the first of the year, so this has been great to track my progress with this tool.  I still look at this sometimes and wonder who this person is that is putting in all these miles.  I think mentally I will realize that it is me after I finish the Mini.  It has been hard for me sometimes because of so many years of saying how much I have hated running.  There are still days when I am asking myself “why?” and then there are other days when I am thinking that running a full marathon would be a possibility.  We will see what happens…

I have a few goals for this weekend…

• I want to finish the 13.1 miles in under two hours…This is an average of a 9.16 minute mile.  I am hoping that the last three miles I can find a Kenyan’s tailwind to help me finish strong.
• I hope that I can drive home safely without cramping up on the way home…I wonder how may designated drivers there will be for the ride home for people who run.  Don’t run 13.1 miles and drive…look for the support group of People Against Cramping Runners Driving.
• My last goal is that if all else fails with my time, due to whatever circumstances that might come up…extreme heat, rain, freezing rain, hail, or injury…that I finish.  I am sure that happens, but I will really be disappointed if I don’t finish the race running.  I said RUNNING.  I think I will give up running if I have to walk.  I am not making fun of walking, but I have trained to run the mini and not walk-run.  That is personal to me.

Best of luck to everybody that is running this weekend.  It is going to be great to be a part of the 39,000+ participants in the nation’s largest half marathon.

Lastly I want to thank Wendy for pushing me to try new things and also for pushing and supporting me.  Add it to the list… 🙂