Tonight I found out that one of my sons has an interest in trying skydiving. Where that came from I have no clue! Skydiving is certainly not an activity that interests me in any way, shape or form. While I like to think that I am not afraid of heights, I still like my feet mainly on the ground. As a mother, I can’t imagine letting my “baby” boy jump out of an airplane with nothing more than a parachute and an experienced jumper attached to his body; however, I also can’t imagine not letting him challenge and push himself beyond his comfort zone. I just might not breathe until he is safely back on the ground!
It is kind of ironic to be presented with this knowledge this evening, because I have been mentally tossing around a challenging and frightening idea of my own for the past few days. My 42nd birthday is exactly a week away, and I have been thinking about doing a marathon in the fall. A marathon is 42.2 kilometres, and I think it would be sort of cool to run a 42 kilometre race when I am 42 years old. At least I think that would be cool some of the time! The rest of the time I am terrified by that thought.
I have been running for nearly 4 years now, but I have never really been much of a distance runner. I have run a 10K race exactly 3 times. While I have enjoyed those races, I also felt that I was sufficiently challenged by the distance. Something changed in my thinking a few months ago, and now I can’t seem to shake this desire to run a marathon in 2014. But it scares me! It really does.
My best 10K time was 1 hour, 10 minutes, which would translate into a marathon time of more than 4 hours. I cannot imagine running for 4 hours! Could I be consistent in my training? Can I increase my running mileage enough to survive a marathon? Is this a realistic challenge, or am I over-stepping my limits? I have so many doubts and fears, but there is still such a strong desire to do this…at least once. It scares me, but that doesn’t mean the task is impossible.
Becoming Angela 