Marathon Man

A couple of months before, I've talked to a friend about joining the Seattle marathon on November. Half seriously, half jokingly, I offered to run it with him.

I've been going to the gym a few times during that time and I think it would be a great idea to gauge your level of fitness by joining a marathon. Of course, I didn't realize how naive I was on what's really needed to run a marathon. In my mind, it wasn't that hard, since I "ran" one when I was in highschool. I ran a 10k one. On the contrary, an actual marathon is 42k.

Yikes! This is something I should take on more seriously. I researched on the Net and found a few regimens I can use. I definitely am not looking for those tough regimens. I am not looking to finish the marathon at a blistering pace, but simply just finish it. Good thing there was one for novice level. And I'm planning to follow that.

So, last Saturday, I ran for about 3.5 miles... It was a nice run. I notice immediately that this can potentially hurt my knees and ankles. But so far, they've held up. I just need to be careful and up the distance over the weeks slowly.

Then I had another run 2 days later which is for 3.1 miles. I thought it was going to be easier, but it turned out to be a lot tougher since the route I chose had a lot of uphill to it. My knees hurt.

But surprisingly, that's not what hurt the most. It's my mid-section.

Now, a few friends offered me an explanation. One said it was because of my breathing--in a marathon, your muscles are exerting an effort just to keep up the breathing. Another said it was because I swing my arms when I run and thus stretch those muscles. Well, whatever it is, it was the most sore part. But otherwise, I was happy my knees or ankles weren't giving me any problems.

So, that's that. It's a great start, and I'm excited of the thought of particating in a marathon. Hopefully I can continue to ramp it up...