Marathon commitment – help from my friends

Last week I ran my seventh half-marathon (13 miles). While I’m not a real speedster, I have finished around two hours in each race, at about a 9:00 minute per mile pace. If you’re a runner and can do a half-marathon at a faster pace than that, I bet you run and train regularly. In other words, you probably have made a commitment to train to this goal of running races at a pretty good clip.

My running group is my conscience. They meet at 5:45 in the morning at the town green six days a week (7:00 in the morning on Saturdays, if you care to run with us). The runs vary each day—speed work on Tuesdays, hills on Thursday, 5-6 mile runs on other days of the week with a long one on Saturdays. I don’t run with them as often as I should, but my commitment to the group means that I’ll send race reports after each significant event (they all just sent their Boston Marathon reports from April). They give encouragement to one another. But even if I’m not running with them, I work at it because they help me stay focused and are interested in my progress.

I committed to run my first marathon, in October in Baltimore (OK to ask here, “Is Mike nuts?”). Well, Baltimore is far enough away so my family doesn’t have to feel like they should watch. But I’ll have to pick up my weekly mileage. I’m going to be joined by three other running friends for their first marathon, and we have a Facebook page to encourage one another and to share our training progress. This is yet another form of discipline while adding a fun element. Not to mention that I just announced this marathon commitment to all Trekking readers…   Mike Oleksak  2009