Ilan & Stephen
Nov 23, 2024
"Running is a gift" and other pre-race reflections before the Philadelphia Marathon.
Yes, Running Weather is an app. But it’s also the brainchild of a couple dyed in the wool runners. We’re out there just like you. Grabbing a quick couple of miles before a meeting. Dropping off the kids then running a few more.
Life is demanding and sometimes it’s hard to find time for the things we love. For us, running is one of those things. It’s a practice, like meditation or learning a new language. It demands total attention, and it rewards devotion. When running is something you do often, you my friend are a runner.
We ourselves are not casual runners. It’s become a little more serious than that. We happen to be into marathons. Watching them, running them, and often at great risk to our relationships, taking the precious time to train for them.
Which is why we’re writing today. Running Weather is heading to Philadelphia this weekend to race in the city of brotherly love’s 31st annual marathon. We plan to put our training to the test, go hard, then promptly hunt down cheesesteaks to replenish our achy souls as soon as we’re finished. See that? We’re already thinking ahead about being done.
These moments of reflection the days before a race might just be the real test. Not the Tuesdays at the track where we’re pushing faster intervals. Or those Saturday long runs with increasingly long marathon pace miles. No, it’s the all important state of mind during the 36 hours of rest prior to the action.
It’s all too easy to doubt yourself. To wonder whether you’ve trained enough — or too much. To rationalize failure before it even happens. The mind does funny things at rest, but goes strangely silent when the start gun goes pop!
There is another way to think before the race. A better way. More than a thought, it’s a way of being.
Our guest for next week’s post is Coach Alli. She’ll discuss some essential tips for winter running. It’s a great conversation and we can’t wait to share it. In our most recent chat with Alli, though, she left us with a gem that we think all runners will appreciate—and hopefully contemplate, especially in those agonizing hours before a race. In response to hearing about our hope to PR after a 12 week build, Coach Alli brought us back to center with this: “Remember, running is a gift.”
Running is a gift, indeed. Whether we’re going slow AF on a warm afternoon or pushing ourselves to go further, faster in a race, it’s all good and all beautiful and we’re all lucky to be able to do it. Today, we are alive and
running!
Ilan & Stephen
