"...it's been waiting for you!"
November 1st is 126 days days away. 18 weeks from today, June 28th, will be the 45th running of the New York City Marathon and I will be one of 50,000 plus people who will be running this iconic race set through the 5 boroughs of New York.
My "official" 18 week (thanks www.halgigdon.com) training program starts tomorrow, but this journey began almost 3 years ago when a friend invited me to run a 5k, for a great local ministry, through downtown Omaha at Midnight. I had never ran 3.1 miles but thought I could. So the next day, I laced up some pseudo running shoes and set out to go what I thought was a distance that was about 3 miles. To my surprise it was a bit shy of 3.5 miles, so I could run a 5k. That led to my first 10k and after that, I didn't know my running would turn into a habit with the challenge of stretching my self imposed boundaries.
I challenged myself (and 2 of my sons) to train over the winter and run a half marathon in February of 2013. After that was completed, I ran another half later that year which was the beginning of my full marathon journey. A friend of mine mentioned to me about a race in Nashville in April of 2014 that was, in part, an opportunity to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. At the time my friend's son had been receiving care from St. Jude's for about 8 years and it was a great opportunity to stretch ourselves to run and raise money. After a few back and forths, WE (really I think it was me) decided that if we were going to do this, we needed to GO BIG and run the full! What an experience from all the training, once again, over the winter, to the raising money and awareness to the actually realization of completing the full marathon that this gave me. In the fall of 2014 I ran my 2nd full marathon, the Omaha Marathon. After that was completed, I thought this distance of 26 point 2 miles was in the past for me, due to the time commitment it takes to get yourself ready to endure this distance.
Well, about a month later, it was a couple of weeks prior to my birthday. I turned 49 on November 9, 2014 and I started thinking about what I could do to have a great year and not let the "number" define me in a negative way. So I set out to have my BEST YEAR YET and decided that the a great way to cap off this BEST YEAR YET, would be to run the New York City Marathon (which runs the first Sunday in November), which runs 8 days before I turn 50. Now, (I know this is getting a bit long, but stay with me here) I did some research to find out how one gets into this race.
There are a few options: Qualify on Time...I'm out on this, as I don't run this fast and I would have needed to already ran a qualifying marathon. Next option: Get picked in the Race Lottery....over 100,000 people put in for this and they select somewhere around 18,000. And the third option, for me, would be to run for a charity. I had done some research and found out that St. Jude has some entry spots available through their St. Jude Hero program...the same program I ran for in the Country Music Marathon in Nashville. I reached out and they said that it wasn't set yet, but they would know something in early March. So I felt pretty go about having an opportunity to run. I went ahead and entered the lottery and my name got drawn! Man, I was overwhelmed with joy and excitement to know that I had an official entry in this race.
So, that brings us to now....18 weeks out. This has been a fun journey up to this point, and it will continue to be fun. I will be blogging about these next 18 weeks, so please stay tuned for updates.
Also, I went ahead and decided to run again as a St. Jude Hero, even though I had guaranteed entry. So if you would like to help and support this great cause, please go to http://heroes.stjude.org/timpeterson and donate. There really is no donation too large, so GO BIG!
You can follow me on twitter as well @_timpeterson
#26point2 #ncymarathon #stjudeheroes #imarunner
My "official" 18 week (thanks www.halgigdon.com) training program starts tomorrow, but this journey began almost 3 years ago when a friend invited me to run a 5k, for a great local ministry, through downtown Omaha at Midnight. I had never ran 3.1 miles but thought I could. So the next day, I laced up some pseudo running shoes and set out to go what I thought was a distance that was about 3 miles. To my surprise it was a bit shy of 3.5 miles, so I could run a 5k. That led to my first 10k and after that, I didn't know my running would turn into a habit with the challenge of stretching my self imposed boundaries.
I challenged myself (and 2 of my sons) to train over the winter and run a half marathon in February of 2013. After that was completed, I ran another half later that year which was the beginning of my full marathon journey. A friend of mine mentioned to me about a race in Nashville in April of 2014 that was, in part, an opportunity to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. At the time my friend's son had been receiving care from St. Jude's for about 8 years and it was a great opportunity to stretch ourselves to run and raise money. After a few back and forths, WE (really I think it was me) decided that if we were going to do this, we needed to GO BIG and run the full! What an experience from all the training, once again, over the winter, to the raising money and awareness to the actually realization of completing the full marathon that this gave me. In the fall of 2014 I ran my 2nd full marathon, the Omaha Marathon. After that was completed, I thought this distance of 26 point 2 miles was in the past for me, due to the time commitment it takes to get yourself ready to endure this distance.
Well, about a month later, it was a couple of weeks prior to my birthday. I turned 49 on November 9, 2014 and I started thinking about what I could do to have a great year and not let the "number" define me in a negative way. So I set out to have my BEST YEAR YET and decided that the a great way to cap off this BEST YEAR YET, would be to run the New York City Marathon (which runs the first Sunday in November), which runs 8 days before I turn 50. Now, (I know this is getting a bit long, but stay with me here) I did some research to find out how one gets into this race.
There are a few options: Qualify on Time...I'm out on this, as I don't run this fast and I would have needed to already ran a qualifying marathon. Next option: Get picked in the Race Lottery....over 100,000 people put in for this and they select somewhere around 18,000. And the third option, for me, would be to run for a charity. I had done some research and found out that St. Jude has some entry spots available through their St. Jude Hero program...the same program I ran for in the Country Music Marathon in Nashville. I reached out and they said that it wasn't set yet, but they would know something in early March. So I felt pretty go about having an opportunity to run. I went ahead and entered the lottery and my name got drawn! Man, I was overwhelmed with joy and excitement to know that I had an official entry in this race.
So, that brings us to now....18 weeks out. This has been a fun journey up to this point, and it will continue to be fun. I will be blogging about these next 18 weeks, so please stay tuned for updates.
Also, I went ahead and decided to run again as a St. Jude Hero, even though I had guaranteed entry. So if you would like to help and support this great cause, please go to http://heroes.stjude.org/timpeterson and donate. There really is no donation too large, so GO BIG!
You can follow me on twitter as well @_timpeterson
#26point2 #ncymarathon #stjudeheroes #imarunner
