Team Tripod Eats A Cupcake

Marathons involve the brain as much as they involve the legs. Training for one is sometimes a contest between which one will give up first – the mind or the body.

This all starts with the 16 week marathon training plan. When the Internet spits out my four months of training, neatly lining up the days I run and how far I run and how fast I’m supposed to do all this – it’s also spitting out an instruction manual of how I am supposed to arrange my days and weeks in order to make it to the finish line.

This takes some discipline and time management. Some days this is easier than it is on others. Saturday, for instance, it was a piece of cake. The training schedule calls for three easy miles and I did it on the treadmill with my iPod cranked up high. I barely broke a sweat.

Thursday – totally different story. I just did not. Want. To. Run. Period.  I was supposed to run seven miles at a nice easy pace. I ended up eking out six miles before I had to pick up my daughter from school. I think I pouted to myself the entire way.

Anyway, I’m in need of some early-season inspiration. So I signed up for the Texas Metric Marathon Relay with reporter Sonia Azad and photographer Chris Day. And then I bought myself a new pair of the shoes I loved so much last year – the Asics Gel Speedstar. It’s a very obnoxious shoe.

 

So now Sonia (who is running the Aramco Houston Half Marathon) and I have something for which to train, something we’re half looking forward to and half dreading. Here is the email conversation we had after I registered our team:

Sonia: This means it's real!... 

Sent from my iPhone

Me: I know. I have decided in the last half hour that I am too slow to be allowed to live any longer and very out of shape and surely will die before I finish.

Sent from my iPhone

Sonia: Shut up.  I'm going to eat a cupcake now. 

Sent from my iPhone

The Metric Marathon Relay (26.2 km split up into three legs) is Sunday November 13 in downtown Houston.

We are Team Tripod (get it, three legs? Ha ha.)

 

Comments

[Matthew Murphy]

Adela, what is the best way to get in touch with you regarging a Houston Marathon story that you may be interested in?