13.1 is half of nothing

As I take a minute to cool down   warm up regulate my body temperature just thought I would take a moment to write some thoughts. Yesterday as I often do I got to visit with a new runner. Through the course of the conversation she told me she has a goal of doing a half marathon, which I find seems to be a very common goal amongst new runners, but then she was telling me a story of a friend of hers that had run one this year. During her recanting of the story she told me how this woman had been a runner for a very long time, but never any long distances like a half. At this point in my mind I had to remind myself just how far 13.1 miles is, and what an accomplishment it is. I have never looked down on the half, I just simply have become so accustomed to longer distances that it has dropped from my mind how nearly impossible that distance seemed to me at one time. The same goes for a 10k. I remember when I first started running a friend was training for a 10k and I thought how grueling the training was for it. Now my daily everyday runs are close to that mark. I hope someday to look back at a full marathon with the same perspective if I ever get the time to train for ultras. If you’re pushing for a half I want you to remember 13.1 is half of nothing. That is a very respectable accomplishment, and my hats off to anyone who trains for and completes it.