wise or wuss?

I am going to run a marathon in October. If I keep telling myself and others enough, I may just believe it...

I began running when I was in the military. I remember I got dumped by my girlfriend back home and I didn't know how to handle it, so I put on my basketball shoes (they were the only tennis shoes I had) and just went running. I eventually got some running shoes and would run the races on base.

Recently I guess I was looking for a challenge and someone suggested a marathon. I said "yes" before I realized what went into the training and how far 26.2 miles really is. Oh well, I said I was going to do it so I better start training. I started off slowly and built my miles up in increments. Last week I ran 20 miles and felt really good about it. I thought "I could run this marathon today". What a difference a week makes...

I was scheduled to run 12 miles but my friend Andy was going to run 18 so I said I would run with him. We got about 9 miles into the run and I felt like total garbage. I was having to work way to hard to maintain a slow pace. My breathing was totally out of whack. I was a mess. After 12 miles, I had to stop. I was dizzy, had stomach cramps and cold sweats. I felt like a total wuss!!!

I was only supposed to run 12 miles so I was able to feel good about doing at least that but I didn't do what I set out to do. I had to listen to my body. It was screaming "something is wrong!" I wanted to press through and keep going but I knew that would do more harm than good. Mentally I was beating myself up but even as I sit here and write this (9:30pm), I still feel like crud. I may be catching something, I hope not but who knows.

My point: you have to know your limitations. I felt like a complete wuss but I would have felt worse if I would've kept going and hurt myself and then not have been able to compete later. I had a goal and it killed me to not reach it but I had to look at the bigger picture. Did I want to finish today or in October? Use wisdom even when it feels like you may be using "wuss-dom".

I needed to listen to my body and rest so I can run another day...