Marine Corps Marathon 2020!
Yesterday, Julia and I ran in the 45th Marine Corps Marathon! Due to Covid, the marathon was done remotely, i.e. you could essentially run the race wherever you would like within a certain window (mid October to mid November). This was my 6th Marine Corps Marathon and 7th overall, and Julia’s 3rd Marine Corps Marathon and 4th overall.
The run went well, actually better than expected since we both didn’t train in a conventional way as we normally do (slowly increasing mileage until 18-20 miles and then bringing it back down as you get closer to the race). The most miles I ran leading up to the race was 10, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect..
The good news was that we were both working out regularly, almost daily with personal training clients and/or chair yoga clients and on our own. Whether it was body-weight exercises (pushups, situps, burpees, squats, lunges, pullups, etc.) or battle rope exercises, running stairs, etc. our cardio was up to speed and our legs were pretty strong.
The night before the race, we both got a good night’s rest and the morning of we weren’t really stressed or nervous about the race. We just had fun with it and figured we’d just give it a shot regardless of how unprepared we had felt.
While our best times were sub 4 hours (3hr40m-4hour) time frame, we managed to knock out the marathon in just over 4 hours! Not too shabby!
We learned an interesting lesson yesterday: When you are confronted with an obstacle or a challenge in life, often times your mind can get in the way of your success and make the problem/challenge appear harder to overcome than it really is.
Fear of failure can completely handicap you and ultimately lead you to fail to achieve your full potential. Turn the mind off, turn off the overly cautious or negative thoughts, and simply take disciplined action to do what you want to do. Regardless of how you feel, you are more prepared than you think you are to venture out into the unknown!
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