Why Run A Marathon

I changed my mind.

When I started this whole quest to run a marathon, that was my goal. Run a marathon. I've been diligent with my training and noticed my endurance and speed slowly increase. Then somewhere along the way I changed my goal to "Run A Marathon.....Fast." Try to finish in less than four hours. I thought (and still think) that's do-able.

But something clicked a few days ago when I was running. I realized that focusing so much on speed was taking a little of the fun out of running.

I thought to myself that I wanted to actually enjoy the whole experience of running a marathon. I don't want to reach the finish line so exhausted that I didn't enjoy the journey. I want to suck everything I can out of the marathon and I think I want to slow down a little bit to do that.

I've started running with a little pocket camera. My pictures at the Bryce Canyon Half Marathon prove that I need some more practice getting decent pictures while running. Lesson learned: you actually have to STOP for a second to take the picture. Here's a shot from my run on Saturday morning:

I want to take the camera with me when I run the St. George Marathon and take some pictures along the way. I don't plan on this being my first and last marathon, but just in case, I don't want to waste the chance. I'll keep training hard and continue to develop speed and endurance, but not to the point that I risk injury.

So I changed my mind. Instead of running the marathon to go fast, I'm going to run a marathon to experience the journey of the marathon.