The Running Marketer

Was this title clickbait? Yes, but it’s also true.

On the way into work this morning I did a hard thing and decided to quit the Ballarat Marathon. I’ll run the half marathon instead.

I got home tonight, logged on and downgraded my registration.

Why did I change my goal?

My carefully balanced life was out of balance with no signs I could fix it soon; possibly not until after April. After the marathon.

And it made me exhausted, I knew something was going to break, and I wasn’t having fun.

Saturday’s 18km run wasn’t fun. The route, fuelling, weather, everything was perfect. When I finished I considered using Sifan Hussan’s quote after taking the gold medal at last year’s Paris Olympics marathon: “Why did I do that? What is wrong with me?”

Which prompted reflection. Was it not fun because it was new and hard or was it just not fun? I made a plan to keep with my training plan and make a decision later.

But this morning on the train I was exhausted. My job is busier than I expected with LOTS of meetings. I have a major dentist appointment tomorrow and trying to work out how to still fit in a run. That’s just dumb. My training plan was tight to catch up on missed injury time. It didn’t allow for dentist visits. It only allowed for low effort days and not rest days.

It was sustainable until my work schedule became more intense and it went out of balance.

So, I changed the plan. There’s no fun marathon before December so I probably won’t hit the goal of running a marathon by the end of the year. I’m slightly feeling like I gave up too early, but I’d prefer not to break anything, including myself.

My half marathon goal

Running a half marathon is still a hard thing. If I keep the long run schedule, I’ll actually run 21.1km in 2 weeks. I think I’ll keep that, but then scale back to 2 hour runs. I also really enjoy the pool time and cycling home from work, so I think I’ll keep those. I’ll also keep the decadent spa hotel room I have booked for Ballarat.

But my race goal is now to race the half marathon in 2 hours or less. I have the distance, I just need to get the speed. And it is more in balance.