The Idea
Last year Hubby ran the Leavenworth Marathon. I went along to be his cheerleader. In the past I had played with the idea of doing a half marathon. It seemed like an insurmountable amount of running.
Looking around while waiting along the race route waiting for him to run by I thought to myself that if I was going to run that freaking far, that Leavenworth would be an amazing and beautiful place to do it!
Training
Right after we got home I started training. The rules for this particular race say that the half needs to be completed in four hours. Could I do it in four hours?
The first step I took was working on getting some longer runs finished. I worked up to running six and a half miles. During this time we were getting ready to move, and my focus shifted from running to moving.
After getting settled in the new house I started training once more. It seemed like I was starting from the beginning. Before the move, I had regularly gotten in any where from 2-4 miles. After the move, that distance seemed forever.
In June Hubbs said, "are we doing this?" I decided that YES we were indeed going to do it. Since then I've been training my tush off under his guidance. Now here we are the week of the race!
The Final Stretch
We are running the course October 5th. We are blessed to have some very amazing people coming out to support us along the route.
The thought of completing this event is very emotional for me. I remember the first time I tried to run, I made it 200 yards. A year later I was able to run a mile in under 14 minutes. At that time I was amazed! 9 years later I'm running 13 miles, although it probably wont be much faster.
Running that far is difficult for most anyone, let alone someone with a chronic illness. I hope that by doing this run I will be able to help people to not simply accept when they are handed a death sentence. I hope that I can encourage people to still follow their dreams, regardless of their circumstances.