Did a half marathon in October, with the intent of training up for a full one in February. Welp, life intervened: classes took more of my time than I thought, my training partner had some minor surgery that took her out of the training plan, and then of course, the holidays will take as much time as you let them. So, I’m nowhere near on track for a marathon in February. But … I do have hopes to run a half marathon in March on the local trail, and then run the full marathon in early June as part of our family vacation.

So, I’m out running my long runs on the weekends, and as much during the week as I can fit in. Today’s outing was 5 miles, which seems both short and long to me… used to be, just making it 2 required great concentration and perserverance. But on the other hand, I know that I’ve run 10 on that same trail, so 5 just seems so short.

To make the half marathon in March, I need to add a mile a week to my long run, which doesn’t seem so bad. I do an out-and-back route on a flat trail (the half will also be on that same course; need to check how flat the full marathon will be), so to add a mile, I only need to make it one more half mile marker down the trail – doesn’t seem so bad. Half a mile at my basic pace is a little less than 5 minutes, and heck, I can hold on for 5 more minutes. That it’s actually closer to a 10 minute impact I manage to block. But hey, 10 minutes isn’t so bad, either.

I think there oughta be a running book out there titled something like ‘Just 10 more minutes…’ Catch all the nonathletes like me that need to figure out how to get to this big goal. If each week I can just run ten more minutes than I did the previous week, I can run a marathon! Bet that applies in lots more situations: if each week I just spent ten more minutes studying, or ten more minutes listening, or ten more minutes cleaning – think of what I could do!