Today is the first day of the 16-week half-marathon training that I have chosen to undertake. I’m not sure where this journey will take me, but I am going to do my best to complete all of it. The mid-week runs are the hardest to complete which, by design, make the weekend runs easier. By skipping a mid-week run, I will pay dearly each Saturday. However, if I complete all of the runs, I will have run 348 miles by the time the half-marathon is done.

348 miles seems like a long way.  It is, in fact, that Google Maps says is the distance from my home in Richmond to New York City. I’m not sure where in NYC, but the point is that it’s a long way away. Without traffic, that is a 6+ hour drive. In perfect weather. Certainly, we will not have perfect weather as we make this journey. This morning, for example, the temperature is 24 degrees. By the time we run, it might be up to 28 or 29. Dressing for the cold like this is always a challenge. You start off so cold you don’t know if you can get started. But, a couple of miles into the run, I get hot — since my body is apparently an incredible heat-generating machine. The oatmeal breakfast helps keep me going. Injuries have generally alluded me, after working through the shin splints and sore feet.

Today is about the willingness to push myself, to get up and run without regard to cold weather, or a sore body, or the deep desire to sleep in. Today, I start to figure out if I have the guts to continue a difficult task for more days each week than I take off. Today is the day I look at running not as a task that lasts one day, but as the start of a journey.

Today is the first day of that journey.