I celebrated my 21st birthday almost two weeks ago and let me tell ya, it was a crazy weekend. But I can assure you it wasn’t crazy in the way you’re probably thinking. I spent my birthday weekend running a MARATHON and it was quite the wild time. (P.S. My favorite song is “Crazy” by Ben Rector and you probably haven’t listened to it, but it is literally my life in a song and I can’t stop singing the words to it as I type this post.) Anyway, I spent my birthday weekend in Duluth, Minnesota with my pal, Emily, where we basically just slept most of the time and ate lots of food, aside from me running for almost 5 hours of course. When we arrived in Duluth on Friday afternoon, I was really just wishing Emily wouldn’t have convinced me to sign up for the marathon back in January. I kept wondering what it’d be like to just have a relaxing weekend like normal people do without any strenuous activity or work. All of Friday night I was so nervous about running in the morning and I was in bed by 9:30 p.m. (but quite honestly that’s not really different from a normal evening of mine.)
Fast forward to Saturday afternoon and I was FINALLY done! The months of training had finally paid off, as my friend Miranda and I crossed the finish line after running the entire 26.2 miles side-by-side. Throughout the run I actually felt great. It wasn’t until the last six miles that it really began to be tough. It feels so great to be on the other side of it now and reflect on how hard I worked for a long time to accomplish one goal that was started and finished in a matter of five hours.
You’re probably wondering why I’m wasting a whole blog post to tell you about my marathon, but stay with me. I want you to think about something for a minute. When was the last time you made an excuse to yourself? It could be anything - big or small. Did you tell yourself that you’d start eating healthier once you just got through whatever it is you think is holding you back from making good choices. Or maybe you let your perfectionism get in the way of putting anything into action. Whatever it may be, that was me when I thought about running. I’ve always said that I want to run a marathon once in my life, but every time I thought about actually signing up for one I would give myself an excuse. For the longest time I thought that what I really needed was more time in order to properly train. It wasn’t until I was at home over Christmas break and researching half marathons that I came across Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth which happened to take place the day after my 21st birthday. Initially I planned on signing up for the half marathon and waiting for a “better time” to finally cross the full 26.2 off my bucket list. When I realized the half marathon was already full, I thought I’d just have to wait until the following year. A couple of weeks later I was back in Ames starting another semester and was telling Emily how bummed I was that I couldn’t run the half marathon, but at the same time I couldn’t stop thinking about just signing up for the full marathon. Right away, she encouraged me to just go for it. After talking through it with her for a day or two, and calling my mom too many times, I just did it. I paid the entry fee and put a training schedule in my calendar. I was so scared and wondering how I’d really make time for all of the running.
Within the first few weeks of training, morning runs just became part of my routine. I also started doing longer runs on Sunday mornings where the first week I ran 4 miles and by the beginning of June I was up to 20 miles one morning. It was not easy, but it was so rewarding. I was always so afraid that it would disrupt my life, and I think that’s how most of us feel with any goal or new thing that’s thrown at us. Sure, sometimes it wasn’t easy to wake up at 6 a.m. every Sunday to get a long run in, but how else would I have been spending my time? Through this experience I’ve learned that if I really want something and put in a little initial effort to get it going, it’ll feel weird to not follow through. Once you tell yourself that one goal is in reach, it’s kind of addicting to keep going.
I have a postcard on my fridge that reads, “You know all of those things you’ve always wanted to do? You should go do them.”
So what are all of the things that you’ve always wanted to do? Stop making excuses about silly things and just go do them.
P.S. here’s the link to the cute postcard if you need some inspiration yourself.
