My Own Little Mardi Gras

As you may have read in my last post, which was posted really really late (in the scheme of things) and follows a very serious lapse in postings, I completed my first marathon on Sunday, October 19, 2008.

Editor's note: I used to refer to the event as "a marathon" or "my marathon." Subsequent to the completion, I call it my "first" marathon. I suspect it's because there are more somewhere in my future. I post this as a warning to all my friends who are seriously considering training with me for my next attempt: no matter what you call it now, more than most likely you'll want to do one again!

In the posting lapse period, I was getting pretty discouraged in my training. Oh, sure, I was doing 95% (margin of error unknown :) of my runs, but the speed was depressingly slow. At times I wondered if I would complete 26.2 miles in under 7 hours and be forced to finish without course marshalls on the sidewalk. Oh the SHAME of it! By the time I was feeling more optimistic -- during the taper phase of the plan -- in the last 2 1/2 weeks of the 16 week plan -- I was so out of the habit of using my GPS to log my time, distance, and route that I just didn't bother to post. Well, after completing the race, and feeling OH SO FLIPPING AWESOME, I had so many little household tasks I had to catch up on that I couldn't force myself to sit at the computer and do a good job of it.

I also was feeling a bit lost: what next? How do I maintain the fitness? I didn't have anything compelling to write.

Then came the holidays (and an awesome extended visit from my daughter), and my fitness pretty much went to hades in a hand basket. This is the period I'm calling

MY OWN LITTLE MARDI GRAS!

• Mardi Gras is the final day of Carnival, the three-day period preceding the beginning of Lent, the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday immediately before Ash Wednesday (some traditions count Carnival as the entire period of time between Epiphany (January 5) or Twelfth Night and Ash Wednesday). The entire three-day period has come to be known in many areas as Mardi Gras.
  
  
• Ok, if the most liberal calculation of Mardi Gras is Jan 6 - Feb 25, 2009 (50 days), and I revelled from October 20, 2008, until this coming Sunday, January 12, we're talking 85 days of bad eating and running behavior!

So that's where I am -- mentally and physically -- right now. I'm off the wagon, searching for the wagon, embracing the fun and the freedom, and ready for the rigors ahead.

I really hope you'll jump on the marathon wagon with me!