I think I can do this!

My name is Raquel. I live in Brickell, also better known as Downtown Miami , I live with my boyfriend of 6 years and our beautiful boston terrier, Betsy. I'm just your typical 25 year old girl... I like to go out with friends, the hubby, and my sister. I really enjoy happy hour with my friends after work, but I'm changing that for my marathon training. And trust me when I say this it is soooo hard. Temptation is always there. so I'm pretty much trading my Grey Goose extra dirty martinis for my running gear! This blog will be my source for venting my thoughts and perhaps for inspiration in this journey to achieve greatness.

So… here I am ready to start training and ultimately finish my first marathon ever! I decided that I wanted to do this after a few weeks running on a treadmill. It wasn’t long till I got bored out of my mind just staring outside the window and that was when my mind decided to fuck with me.

She’d tell me “you should be running outside, in this beautiful city “… downtown Miami. Oh what was I thinking?!!! I couldn’t run for 20 minutes on a treadmill and I was going to run outside in the elements? The hard pavement, blowing wind, people, Miami traffic, street lights… did I mention the April weather … Miami weather. Forecast? Humid and sunny… and a slight chance of MORE sun… but still, just beautiful. So I put on my kicks and told the hubby I’m training for my first marathon, the hubby gives me a look and says ‘wow … um, good luck”.

Thanks to a website I stumbled upon, I’m able to track the distance I would be running.

After a bit of training I started running laps around Brickell Key. 2 laps = 2.26 miles. Piece of cake, right? I knew this loop was right by the bay… so if the city is windy, the bay was going to be even windier. But I knew that the 2.26 miles weren’t going to be the problem, it was passed those 2.26 miles I dreaded the most. That’s about the time I usually start to give up. There was a time I used to run 3 miles with the hubby before… I never did more than that. I did my 2.26 for four days the first week. The following week I ran one day 2.26 and on Saturday I woke up feeling great and decided I could probably run 3.07 miles… thinking I can do this! I’m awesome …

How wrong I was. I thought I was going to die, and puke, and die some more. I made it back to my apartment crying… not the chick flick sobbing but boogers hanging type crying… I was utterly disappointment myself, I wanted to quit right there! The good part is that the hubby was home, and he talked out of it… telling me that it was only one day that I didn’t do that great, that I had the rest to make it up for it.

So it’s been 3 weeks since I started running, last week I did 3.25 miles in 45minutes, and on Friday I ran on the treadmill for 40 minutes nonstop.

Still a long road ahead of me but I am giving it my all to finish something that I really want… to be able to say YES I know I trained for a marathon and YES I finished it too … I need to know what it feels like to achieve that!!