Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Day 1 - Castady - And They're Off

I’m a creature of habit. Running has become a part of that habit for the past 18 years. Unfortunately, I’ve also gotten into a bad habit of completely falling off the horse sometime around the middle of the November through the end of the year. Then on January 1st, just like everyone else, I turn over a new leaf and start getting back into things.

Part of the problem is that I just don’t have much motivation in those late months of the year. I’m always coming off of a fall marathon and it’s too early to really get into spring marathon training. So I’m just kind of running (or not running as the case may be) without a purpose. Plus it’s cold. And dark. And cold.

The other issue is that, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a creature of habit. Usually that’s a good thing for a runner, but at this time of year, the holidays have a pretty good way of completely blowing up any habits that I normally have. There’s parties, and late nights, and days off of work, and drinks, and food, and…I could go on, but I might end this experiment before I even get to my first run, so I better stop.

You get the point. There’s stuff, and it’s easy to just blow off running with the justification that I’ll get to it in the New Year. And that’s where the Marcothon comes in. It’s the motivation I need to prevent me from turning into a sloth during December. Plus, my wife tells me I’m easier to deal with when I’m running regularly. She’s probably kidding…

Oh yeah, I can eat more now too!

Alright, here comes a confessional. When I read the rules for the Marcothon, I must have missed the part about doing all the runs outside. I do a lot of my running at lunchtime downtown so it’s kind of a pain to drag warm clothes to and from work every day. In the spirit of this thing, I did go outside for my first run, but I don’t know that I’m going to keep that up for the duration. In other words, I reserve the right to wimp out and hit the treadmill. Call it the ModifiedMarcothon. So my first run was a gloriously freezing 4 miles along the lakefront path downtown. I didn’t have a watch with me, but I hit the 25 minute threshold, so day 1 is DONE.

1 comment:

  1. The whole "outside" thing is Tabitha's special gauntlet glove that she throws at us. Actually if you already have a habit of running indoors, it is more than acceptable. I ended up doing two days on a treadmill last year because I developed a nasty cold.

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