Weight loss and running a marathon

I remember very clearly the moment that my legs and knees stopped rubbing together during a workout run and when my arms hung down straight to my sides. If one has never been heavy, it’s a hard feeling to describe.  At that point, I had only lost a fraction of where I am now. I have recently hit the 90 pound loss mark from my very heaviest, 55 of those pounds lost in the past 4 years.

Then

 

And now

I also remember the day that we had to run 2 miles for our Saturday gym workout. I ran the first mile and had to walk most of the second and my hip flexors hurt for a week. And now I am getting ready to run my one and only full marathon.  I can hardly believe that in 9 days I will be at the start line of the St. George Marathon.  After running 23 half marathons in the past three years, a full never really was on my “bucket list”.  I sorta, kinda got talked into it by a friend and my hubby.  I am trained and ready for it.  I will not break any kind of speed records but I will finish it.  Then I never have to do one again.  I quite like the half marathon distance, it’s a reasonable time in which to finish and the training time doesn’t suck!

I’m in the taper madness phase of this upcoming race.  Still doing a little something something but cutting back on frequency and intensity.  And don’t even get me started on the eating.  I know it is okay to eat a little more in the days leading up to the race but this hunger is beyond what I have normally experienced.  My mantra this week has been “trust your training” so I need keep repeating it and know that I have done everything I can to get to the race start!

This has turned into a little bit of a rambling post so I’ll close for now.