A day before my first (and only?) marathon

Over two-and-a-half years ago, I signed up to run a marathon for the first time. Unfortunately Covid had other plans and it was cancelled after almost three full months of training, but I caught the itch and knew I had to run one at some point.

I've still never ran a real race before (when I first signed up, I don't think I'd ever ran as far as 10km in my life), but got it in my head that I wanted my first race to be a really (really) tough challenge - something that would take months to train for, something that would push me to the limit, and something with a real chance of failure.

After just over 5 months of consistently running 4 times per week, I can safely say that training for a full marathon has definitely been all of those things and more - and tomorrow I find out just how real that chance of failure is.

There were some hiccups along the way:

• going back into lockdown in January meant I couldn't train in my gym, so I took to the snowy streets of Toronto to run outside
• in mid March, I tweaked something in my left hamstring and took 3-4 days to rest and stretch (thankfully it was very minor)
• in early April I got Covid. Luckily I had very mild symptoms and it only sidelined me for about 6-7 days

But I stuck to the plan I laid out (below), adjusted it as needed due to the above, and feel confident going into the race tomorrow.

I've also learned a lot along the way. About running, discipline, mental toughness, hydration, and how much more we can accomplish if we create a plan and do everything we possibly can to stick with it.

But I'll share some of those in another article...

For now, I'll be resting up, eating a bunch and trying to get some sleep before the big day.

Wish me luck, but I hope I won't need it.

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