After running my first half marathon this past October, a bunch of people have already asked me:
Are you gonna try to PR (set a personal record) on your next race?
Probably not. And while I’d kind of like to, my knee doesn’t want me to. So no, probably not. I just want to have fun and enjoy running through the Magic Kingdom and Epcot.
When are you going to train for a marathon?
Never. Seriously. At the end of the half marathon, the first thought that came to mind was, “I don’t think I’d ever want to run a marathon.”
My legs were aching, my knee was killing me, and it was 1am and I was exhausted. A week later, recovered and back home reflecting on the race, same result – I had no interest in running a marathon.
When I first signed up to run a half marathon, I was kind of shocked with myself, and worried that it might be too much for my body. But I slowly built up my training, followed a manageable plan, and felt good and ready to run the race.
I’m so glad I did. I feel good about this running distance, which is long and takes a while, but doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to me. Granted, it’s a hell of a lot more running than most people do, and I think a lot of long-distance runners and healthy living bloggers lose sight of that sometimes.
WHY I HAVE NO DESIRE TO RUN A FULL MARATHON. EVER.
1. It’s too hard on your (read: my) body.
I feel like I’ve read horror stories about people who have run marathons, and lost full control of their bodies (um, yuck), or can’t walk for weeks after the fact. I know lots of people are into it, feed off it, and love having such a big goal, but I’m happy with the half marathon distance, which is more than enough anyway.
2. I don’t want to run for that long.
One of my favorite parts of training for a half are the long run days. I love getting my gear together, picking out some podcast, Pandora stations, or my own music, and heading off. To me, it’s kind of like going hiking – it’s all about the long journey. And a two or three hour run is long, don’t get me wrong, but doesn’t take up the whole day. I don’t need much more than one waist pack of fuel, and I don’t have to worry about dropping off water bottles along the route.
More time than that, though, seems like too much, especially because unlike hiking, there’s no view halfway through. (Unless you ran up and down a mountain.) It’d probably take me at least six hours to run 20 miles, if not more. It just doesn’t interest me. Nope.
3. It’s fun to be a spectator.
I volunteered for one race before, and think it’ll be especially fun to watch and cheer on runners at the Walt Disney World Marathon in January. Even though I don’t see a marathon in my future, I am amazed by people who do it. It’s inspiring, awe-inducing, and watching runners who I personally know is even more fun. If you can’t join ‘em, watch ‘em.
With the WDW Marathon and Half Marathon coming up the first weekend in January, it’s definitely been on my mind. I’m excited to run my race, for sure (knee, don’t stop me!), and to watch a bunch of my new Disney friends run the marathon (from the media tent – runDisney and blogging about Disney is sweet!).
No matter what, I’m in it to have fun, feel healthy, and feel accomplished. A half marathon gives me plenty of that feeling already.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Girl, I am SO with you on not wanting to run a full. A half is plenty for me. It takes so much time to train, so much preparation mentally and physically. I want running to be fun and I am fairly certain that’d suck the fun right out of it.
Yes! Exactly! It would suck the fun out of it. While I so look forward to my long runs of 6-12 miles, I can’t imagine looking forward to a 20-miler nearly as much.
We should start a half marathon running blogger’s club. Cause it seems like so many bloggers run fulls.
i hear you! mostly for me right now i don’t want to cut into my social life to train for the thing… and i too know it’s really hard on my body, so it’s probably a bad idea anyway. sigh. maybe one day when i have the time, energy and stamina? meh. for now, i don’t even wanna race, really. just running is cool with me
I think it’s so much better to do what makes us happy, instead of what we think we should do. I know people who run because they think “everybody runs”, even though they hate it. If you just wanna run and not race, that’s cool. If you want to run a marathon or half marathon, that’s cool too. And for people who want to walk or swim or bike or go to the gym or whatever, sweet.
And knowing your history with injuries, a marathon probably isn’t the best idea, for now anyway. Unfortunately.
It sounds like the half-marathon is just right for you!
I love this! I’m so content with just running 5k races at this point, but I feel like there’s so much pressure to do more than that. Next time someone asks me about a marathon, I’m just going to send them to this post.
Thanks, and please pass it along to those non-believers!
I really hate the pressure the healthy bloggers community seems to put on people to do more and more physically. It’s just not for everyone, and for those of us who do run, we can find distances we love best.
I don’t even know if I want to run a half, to be entirely honest. I would love to say that I did a full/half marathon. But do I want to actually do it bad enough to work toward that goal? I’m not a long distance runner – 10k was a stretch (I did well timewise, in large part because I’m competitive and being part of a pack really pushed me onwards on the day). I really like running, because I don’t measure myself. I actually do it for the enjoyment, as much as the fitness. And like another commenter mentioned, I am pretty sure trying to run 40 k would eliminate all the fun.
If you love running, then I think that’s the best thing. If you’re into running shorter distances, I think that’s cool – I’m super slow, so I feel like longer distances are a better fit for me.
In the next few weeks I’ll be posting my feelings on exercise and how to choose what you love, cause I always feel like there’s so much pressure (from blogging, typically), to do what everyone else does.