Welcome!

Hi, and welcome to the blog. Over the next 30 weeks, I'll be writing about what happens when two 40-somethings (who both sometimes feel a bit "over the hill") take on their first marathon in over 10 years. I'll also be spreading the word about Fisher House, the organization for which we have decided to run. Some of you may already be familiar with this charity through Chris's book; we obviously feel it is a very worthy cause!

As I mentioned above, Chris and I both have previous marathon experience. He ran cross country in high school, and then four Marine Corps Marathons with his dad between 1990-93. His best time was in 1991 when he ran 3:57:10---not too shabby! If Chris completes this year's Marine Corps Marathon, he will be eligible to join the MCM Runners Club, which guarantees him entry to the race for life---we'll see how eager he is to take them up on that October 29th.

I only have one marathon under my belt. In March 2002, I ran the Inaugural Washington DC Marathon; I believe it was actually the inaugural and the final as it was cancelled the next two years and no longer exists (though there is now a spring Rock'n'Roll DC marathon in its place). I finished in 4:27:24, just beating my goal of a sub 4:30.

Since completing our marathons, our running has been sporadic at best. There was a 20k in '97, a sprint triathlon in 2004, countless 5k races---but something would always get in the way of consistency. Busy career, busy kids, illness, injury, weight gain, and even just plain old laziness all hindered our running at some point. And while starting up again always seems to feel easy for Chris, for me it is definitely a challenge. For whatever reason, I seem to be more prone to injuries and aches and pains; this may be due to a few extra pounds I'm carrying, or perhaps simply because my body is not really made for running, and I have to work a bit harder to condition it to do so.

Though I trained for and finished my previous marathon injury-free, I have had problems almost every time I have started running again in the decade since. Most, if not all of these issues have been with my lower legs (shin splints, muscle strains), culminating last July with a diagnosis of Tibial Stress Reaction in both shins-- a precursor to a stress fracture. I took a full 3 months off from running and have been going slow ever since. Chris's weak spot is definitely his knees; he is on his feet a lot and it has taken a toll. The good news is I am feeling much better, and Chris swears his knees are no big deal, so I think we are good to go, even if we are more tortoise than hare.

Why a marathon now? We both love running but felt we didn't do it nearly enough, and while we each had run a marathon, we hadn't done one together yet. The kids are old enough that we can get out of the house for a few hours a week to train. And I know I am better about working out when I have a definite goal in sight with a solid training plan to follow.

Why run for Fisher House? Oddly enough, we got the idea to run a marathon March 8. I checked out the MCM website to see when registration opened, and found to my astonishment that not only had it opened the day before but had already sold out in under three hours! Our only options at that point were to wait until next year, or run with a charity. When we saw Team Fisher House listed on the charity page, we knew it was meant to be as Chris had already designated FH as the recipient of proceeds from his book. We know they do a lot of good for military families, as well as having an exceptional 4-star ranking on Charity Navigator.

We signed up for the marathon that same night.

If you are still reading, thank you! Future entries should not be nearly so long and I will usually be posting once a week to just let you know how our training is going. We appreciate all of your support in this endeavor, and hopefully we can make you proud.