New Adventures in 2012

Going to keep this one quick, but I'm already so excited about 2012's running adventures, when it's only January 2nd. Yesterday was day 1 of my 18-week marathon training program and I loved being out on the roads with a bigger picture goal in mind again, no matter how far away it is for now. I ran a solid 10km run at a gentle pace, and followed that up with another 9km of walking with friends. Man that felt good! The more I think of it, the less daunting the 42.2km sounds and the more excited I feel. I've no illusions about it being easy, but I'm super confident in my plan and in my abilities. It's really going to happen *gasp*

I've started a new job at the Running Room, like I mentioned earlier, and I'm really enjoying having a job that's fun and surrounds me with like-minded people. I've already encountered so many customers who've been thrilled to talk to me, have me help them pick out gear, and talk about training. And it's only been a week! Last Friday, I also had the opportunity to meet the Running Room's founder, John Stanton. We had a great chat which included talking about my plans to train for my first marathon. We specifically talked about those 32km training runs I'm going to have to do along the way, and something he said really stuck with me. He said that it'll allow me to go into my race thinking, "Time for another 32km training run. When I'm done, all I have to do is run a 10km race." My goal is to enjoy every step of this 18 weeks, every long run, even those 32km runs (regardless of how long they take) and it's going to be great having a community at the Running Room to feed off of too.