Why Ignorance is Bliss

When I decided to run a half marathon to celebrate my birthday, I got a good pair of shoes, loaded up my iPod and hit the pavement. Finding a training schedule online, I used that as a benchmark to increase my miles and cross train. Some weeks were better than others, but less than a month before the race, I feel fairly, somewhat, moderately, reasonably, kinda, sorta, confident that I won’t get scooped up by the bus because I’ve run out of time.

I even got some great advice from Giancarlos, Jillian Michaels business partner, when I met with them the night before my conference earlier this year. He gave me a strategy that I plan to use (I’ll let you know what his strategy is AFTER the race – just in case it doesn’t work!).

But things changed yesterday when I went to one of my favorite places - the bookstore. I decided to pick up a couple of running magazines and began reading some of the articles around half marathons, marathons and training. PR, hydration plan, nutrition program, runner’s gait, anaerobic training, sweat rate, biomechanics, compression socks? What the heck are these people talking about????

The more I read, the more I began to panic. All I’ve been doing is running (and not that consistently at times!). Is that not enough? Am I missing something? Am I setting myself up for failure? Finally, I had to put the magazines down, take a deep breath, and just go to sleep.

But now that a new day has dawned, I’ve revisited those magazines in a much calmer state. No goal is ever accomplished in a vacuum. I should have picked up resources on running months ago. But now that I have, I’ve learned some information from these magazines that has been both helpful in preparing me and motivating me.

August 2nd is just a few short weeks away!