How Do You Eat An Elephant?

This is the third week of training for the St. Jude's Marathon and to be honest I've struggled some. The mileage during the week isn't much different than what I typically run and I've done well with it.  The weekend runs have been harder. I'm a slowpoke and our group is small so I run by myself most of the time. It's not a huge thing but there's no one around to push you when you need encouragement.

The 12 mile run last Saturday added a new wrinkle to our route: a half mile hill. Ok, it got in my head and even before I got there I was already walking.  I finished the 12 but it wasn't pretty.

I had a 6 mile run on the calendar for Thursday and I decided to use the part of the 12 miler with the hill to map it out. As I looked at the map I realized that if I ran the route one direction, there was a long steady ascent to the peak elevation but if I reversed it the elevation seemed to increase in smaller increments with flat areas in between.  At least that's what I told myself. (To steal from Yogi Berra, 90% of running is half mental). It seemed to work - I had a good run at a good pace. 

It reminded me of the old joke:  how do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.

I think that's going to be my mantra for this training:  one bite at a time.  One mile at a time. One tenth at a time. One step at a time. 

It's also a good mantra for fundraising. One dollar at a time.  No one has the resources to fully fund a state of the art medical facility that doesn't charge families for treatment but together we can make a difference, one dollar at a time.

Won't you click the link below and donate to St. Jude's?

St Jude's