Outsmarting the heat..............................

Last week I was able to fit my runs into the early morning hours and avoid the heat, and over the weekend it was wonderfully cool.

Yesterday with the humidity it felt close to a hundred degrees. It was so very tempting to listen to the weather man and, "not go outside unless you absolutely had to." The little devil in me kept saying it was okay to skip the run, and the good girl didn't have much enthusiasm when it came to rebuttals.

What I did to combat it was call (my) Mister and ask him to rearrange his schedule and work late so he could go in late this morning and I could run before he left. Of course he worked this out because he loves to make my life easier. By doing this it really committed me to doing the run in the heat last night and getting out this morning.

Now, with another ten miles (five each day) under my shoes I am glad that I didn't listen to my inner devil. Bottom line is the only person I am cheating by not putting in the training miles is me. Will a missed run here or there cause me to not finish the marathon? Probably not. I know that there may come a time when I really do need to miss a run, for any number of reasons, and am not planning on being totally rigid to the training schedule if something really important comes up. I also know that the more I try and work things out to limit the number of missed runs the better I am going to feel about myself for sticking with the training even when life tries to get in the way.

The October marathon is one race, on one day, and yet it is much more than just that. Each step of that marathon is really going to be a culmination of all I have gone through since that very step of the commitment to walk on the treadmill fifteen minutes a day five days a week close to three years ago. My (oldest) daughter expressed my thoughts perfectly the other day when she shared with me that "she really wanted the training to be hard because that would not only make the accomplishment that much better when she crossed the finish line, but that the harder the training the more it would help her cope with future hard times."

Just like everything in life the more I put into training for the marathon the more I am going to get out of it, both in terms of enjoyment of the actual race, and more importantly in what I learn about myself and those around me that are taking this journey with me. What a gift this is turning out to be!