That elusive Marathon.... by Res

Some of you might think how come a marathon is elusive, you either sign up to do it or you don't. Well, here is a little story of my first full marathon on fresh legs (thats for another entry) that when I think is going to happen it doesn't.

It all started last year, we had finished our Austin 70.3 Ironman on October 28th, and after talking to our coach on the weeks prior to it (even prior to our crash) we had decided we were going to do the Dallas Marathon. What I didn't count with was that I was going to return from Austin with somewhat of an injury. My foot got swollen and really hurt, but after x-rays, dye CT-Scans and doctors nothing was wrong with it. By the it was already almost thanksgiving so there was no way for me to do that since the marathon was on early December. Felipe had thought of doing it but we had decided to wait to do it together as we always try to do things together. Even though we start together and 90% of the time don't finish together, just the fact of knowing he is around on the same course makes me feel like he is closer than if we was home or simply somewhere at the finish line waiting for me (it happens to him too). So we decided we weren't going to race after all.

Dallas Marathon Registration

A few months go by and we do our first ironman, yes it included a 26.2 mile run but since we seem to be doing things backwards, as we did a 70.3 half ironman before we did just the 13.1 run by itself, it seemed appropriate that we would do the 26.2 mile run after we did the 140.6 full ironman. We then signed up back in June or July (can't remember when) and we were all ready for our "running" season to start and be only running for a while. We started the training and I was called to serve our country with the Public Health Service in December. Guess what... The weekend of the marathon!!!. I love to serve our country don't get me wrong but thanks to our lovely shutdown a few weeks ago, they pushed my trip to December since November was out of the question. We were training, and to keep Felipe company on his long runs I continued training however was a bit bummed that I wasn't going to run it. Felipe will be running it while I keep track of him online and wait for him to tell me he finished his first full marathon. :(. It is a bittersweet feeling, while I'm proud of him for pushing his limits and wanting to do it alone, I am still sad I won't be able to do it with him, on top of losing the $100 registration fee.

Anyways... That's the story of my elusive marathon, not sure now when I will do it, next year we have to be smart with our training and racing since we are officially signed up for 2x140.6 distances, IronMan Arizona and Challenge USA (Atlantic City), don't want to be putting more than we need to as we know running a marathon will probably set us back on our progress since recovery probably take from our already busy training schedule.