A Little Inspiration

Monday night, Anders Brookers, the owner of Missoula's premier running store, The Runner's Edge, gave a talk at the Good Food Store regarding training for the full- and half- Missoula Marathon. I was excited to go and dragged Ryan along. (It turns out we will not be participating as a couple in this year's Valentine's Day Scrumpy Jack Scramble 5k run. I got the "don't even ask" head shake when it was brought up during the talk.)

Side Note: If you ever have the opportunity to try the GFS's Sweet Potato Soup, DO IT. It has peanut butter in it. It's incredible.

Anyway, Anders is also the coach of the Hellgate High School track and cross-country teams, so he knows his stuff. He didn't say much that I hadn't already read on the website, but he did answer some questions on things like the advantages of caffienated vs de-caffienated power gels. He also reiterated that the half-marathon is a very acheivable goal from where I'm at now. Apparently, one could even conceivably make it through the whole marathon at this point, but I'm not crazy enough to make myself that miserable for the next 23 weeks. I do need to be able to do my job without falling asleep at my desk, after all!

We were also told to expect to be hungry all the time. Uh, I already am hungry all the time. What the flip is going to happen when I start running long distances? I will definitely be investing in almonds and other proteins! I should also expect to be tired all the time. Sounds awesome!

In all seriousness, I'm very excited about the marathon and I'm definitely going to shell out the $80 to do the Runner's Edge training classes.

More on my training and progress in the next post!