Day 1 of 112
Like most marathon training schedules I’ve seen, mine starts with a rest day, so today, which also happened to be a day off work, was spent in deep contemplation of the task ahead rather than any actual physical training. I’ve been here before several times over the last four or so years, but have yet to get anywhere near completion, so to put it all on the line like this, out in the open as it were, is no small matter for me.
Past efforts have always been cut short by illness, injury or plain lack of motivation. But I’m fairly confident now of being past the worst of my injury problems, and whilst there’s little to be done about unexpected illness, I’m as fit and healthy as ever. Motivation though, that’s another thing. To keep up a fairly demanding schedule for four months requires a fair amount of determination, or at least a massive desire to get the thing done. And it’s not easy to stay that focussed for such a length of time. As someone once said, motivation is like personal hygiene – you need it on a daily basis.
In search of motivation, I’ve spent a fair chunk of time today re-reading past exploits of RC champions here, watching Rocky movies and various videos on marathons and other athletic super-events to try and get the juices flowing a little more, and to perhaps discover what it is that drives me. If I can discover that and grab hold of it, then motivation should not be a problem.
The question I always seem to end up asking – especially when things are really going wrong – is
why am I doing this? What exactly am I trying to prove? But as I discovered yesterday in the 8km “fun” run, the reason isn’t always that obvious.
In fact I’ve come to believe that the reason “why” is actually largely irrelevant. There’s probably no grab-all answer that would ever satisfy me in any case, and certainly not the cynics such as my brother or some of the clowns at work. But for whatever reason we start these things, the reason for carrying on is that, as John Collins the founder of the Ironman concept said; “ (it’s)
about finishing what you started…about being able to do what you set out to do…maybe not as fast as the person in front of you, but certainly faster than the person who never started.”
Or, as someone else once said, “
well you know a fella can’t just sit around”. So for whatever reason I started this thing, it’s got to be worth finishing. I
hate quitting.
So
(deep breath in), here we go…
Adelaide Marathon Campaign - Week 1 of 16
