T minus five weeks until my half-marathon

A few weeks ago, when I was visiting with my American cousin and his wife, our conversation veered towards running. She is a half-marathoner – having run three races over the last several years. When I expressed some fears over the distance, she scoffed at me and said ‘Run it in miles, it’s sooooo much shorter!’.

Of course, in reality, it’s not. 21 KILOMETRES is a half-marathon, which means 13 MILES is a half-marathon. It’s the same distance, you just don’t have to count as high.

But what she was likely getting at with me is distance is mind over matter. And as I approach the long distances in my training runs, I really understand the concept of mind over matter.

I’m less than five weeks away from my date with 21 kilometres and although I’m nervous, I know I can do it. In my training, I’m currently up to 19 kilometres. And honestly, once you’ve run that far, what’s two more?

The challenge is when I actually stop and think about how far 19 kilometres is. At that distance, when I head out for a Sunday morning run, I could technically run all the way from my house, to my friend’s house in The Beach and almost all the way home. That’s when I get nervous. When I put a perspective on just how far I need to run.

So, mind over matter – I have five weeks left to train. That’s five weeks to build up two more kilometres. That’s five weeks to work on increasing my speed. That’s five weeks of running three times a week (but not for 19 kilometres each time).  That’s five weeks of having lots of time to myself to think.

That’s five weeks until this crazy idea of running a half marathon becomes reality.