So you wanna run a half-marathon do ya?

Jess recently posted about when she started becoming the marathoner we have before us today and I thought it’d be a good time to share my thoughts on the whole thang. So as she stated, just over 8 years ago, Jess’s interest in running was piqued by a family member. At this point, she was most definitely not a runner. Little would I know that this decision to start running would affect me in some big ways.

The early phase. Jess picked that half-marathon plan, and she stuck to it! And in those early days, we had early days, rising far before the sun to go to the gym. I was mainly there for support at that point, just encouraging her along the way. We had some cold mornings with me on the bike, fully decked out in winter gear, trying to stay warm as she would run her way our Kagy blvd in Bozeman, running a little further each week. I didn’t always go to the gym with her, especially if she had a long run to do on the treadmill. One of the last runs of her training program, she barely made it home, collapsed on the floor of our kitchen and exhausted herself to the point of illness.

The “you’re IT band is better, so you wanna run a half-marathon” phase. It had taken a few months, but my IT band was on the mend and I was finally able to do some running again. We both had gotten into our first pair of Brooks running shoes, to which our feet responded positively. I knew it was inevitable, Jess was a runner now, but without a race under her belt, it left her wanting. At first her sights were set on running a honest-to-goodness half-marathon. The thing that people learn about Jess after a few encounters is that she is A, extremely hospitable, B, enticingly motivating, and C, a great source of peer pressure. With her goal of running a half-marathon and the event of choice being the half at the Missoula Marathon, she somehow got her sister, a friend and myself all signed up for the event. I won’t talk much on that race, but it was a good one, even I was pretty pumped about it.

That’s all for this installment. Next time I’ll talk about a half becoming a full.