I have been thinking for the past day about how far I am willing to go with my running.  This past weekend two women that I know participated in long distance events; one in an Ironman and the other in her first marathon.  I can tell you now that an Ironman will not happen for me; the swimming part of it completely freaks me out; not that I cannot swim, just that swimming for anything more than leisure seems too stressful.

The marathon on the other hand, this has crossed my mind as a possibility more than once.  Am I anywhere near ready for it?  No.  Could I be at some time in the future?  Sure.

So far I have only completed one half marathon and several shorter races; my longest training run, only 12 miles.  None of this physically prepares me for a marathon; running and training have however mentally given the courage to consider it.

I did have one first this weekend.  I ran in the rain.  The weather in our area called for rain all weekend, so after waiting a few hours on Saturday morning for it to stop I decided just to go for it.  It was a good run, I actually did not mind at all that it was raining; I do have to figure out how to use my MP3 player in the rain mine did not hold up well and I put it away about a half mile into my run.  Might not seem like a big deal running in the rain, but to me it was the first time I was so itching to run that nothing else mattered; and my next run is all I have thought about since, that will be tomorrow AM.

Do you push through your limitations?  Whether your limitations are physical or mental; what do you do to keep going? I think of it this way – If I am suffering that is certainly not the time to stop, it is the time to push, and on the other side of that push is victory, comfort, and satisfaction :).

And lastly, a lot of what I have accomplished is because of my support system, the two women I mentioned at the beginning of this writing are both part of that system, both of these women along with others I know have shared both their victories and their setbacks which are equally effective in inspiring me to keep going.