My husband started training for his first marathon shortly after I ran mine. He has always been athletic and fit, but long-distance running wasn’t his typical routine. He didn’t worry about whether or not he would be able to run the marathon. His major concern was where. Did he want to try to run the local marathon or make it a good excuse to take a trip to a new city?
As he started increasing his distances through training, he realized it wasn’t going to be as easy as he had thought. Various injuries kept setting him back in his training and it took him close to a year to prepare for his first half-marathon. More injuries took him off the training path all together.
About six months ago, he decided to start increasing his distances again. He got new shoes, developed a thorough ice-down routine for after his runs, and added swimming to his routine. One, or all, of these additions allowed him to progress to the 13-mile (half-marathon) distance easily. He successfully ran that distance last week, with no injuries to speak of. He is now more than confident he’ll be able to run a marathon this coming December.
I tell his story because I think it’s an important one. Failure to reach a goal the first time does not mean you can’t ever reach it. It is so easy to get discouraged when trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle and fitness goals. We have injuries, we put on weight we struggled to lose, we simply…stop. Watching my husband get back on the horse again has been both inspiring, and motivating.
Now I’m ready to get back on my half-marathon training program. My toes are almost healed. I’m going to have to backtrack on my progress a bit, but if my husband can do it…so can I.
What setbacks have you overcome in your fitness journey?
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