2012 - Empire State Marathon - My First 26.2, uh 23.0
Yep, 23.0. I was signed up for the full marathon. I started the full marathon. I did not finish. I may, ok do, have an epically big ego but learned hard that people actually use plans that can take months to prepare for a marathon...but let's back this story up to the real beginning. (Note: This was written in 2021 for posterity, but I've tried to tell the story from a 2012 perspective) 5 months earlier in May 2012 , I prepared for my first 5k since high school cross country many years ago. After a couple of weeks to recover, I was able to get a running habit going, sort of. Since my weight was in the 260-270 pound range it didn't seem that I could actually handle pounding the pavement, but I could keep a daily habit working out on an elliptical machine. I trained on the elliptical machine by HR and time and rarely got outside to run, except for an occasional 5k race. This seemed to be the balance I needed to improve my fitness and have le...