Runnin' and such

At the beginning of this experiment in creativity, in which I decided I would seek out daily practices and new experiences to enhance my personal creativity and then share them with others, I told myself I would run a marathon in 2011. It appears that 2011 is going to happen pretty soon, tomorrow night around midnight, actually. Not only that, but the date for the marathon is also set before me and quickly approaching: March 20th. How is the training going? Well, I am definitely at that place that one may call "the tipping point". 

The longest race I have run up to this point is a half-marathon. Did you know that half means 50% of a whole marathon? So, now I am supposed to double that? To 26.2 miles? Hmm... it seemed like a great idea at the time. Basically, I am crossing over into the portion of the training that is unfamiliar territory for me. Everything up till now has been pretty similar to the half-marathon training, but now the long runs are getting a bit longer and the date of the race seems to be running towards me! Not to mention, we have been getting a lot of snow and wintery mix type weather up here, making it much more difficult to train out of doors and it is to the treadmill  I go so as not to slip on the ice and slush. 

To ease my nerves a bit, I have joined a training program at the local YMCA and that starts on Monday. I am hoping by enlisting some community encouragement, along with the help of professionals that I can stay encouraged and motivated and actually stick to the now "new zone" in my training schedule. 

This has been on my life to-do list for quite sometime and I guess crossing some things off of that list is a bit harder than others. Perhaps, every night before I go to  bed I will watch the section of the movie Forest Gump when he declares plainly, "I just felt like runnin'".