How Hard Can It Be?

As I headed out this morning for another 10km run I found myself accompanied by a little bit of self-doubt, which has been creeping in during the last couple of weeks. Can I finish the marathon? The answer is clearly "yes". But can I run the marathon strong and finish just as strong as I started? That's where the doubt arises. The longest training run I have ever done is still 7.2km shy of the marathon distance, and although that in and of itself is nothing as far as distances go doing it after having been running for three or more hours is something I've never experienced.

Anyway, I ran this morning as per usual, staring nice and slow and then picking up the pace without really trying. This tells me that my taper is going well, although my legs are still not as "fresh" as I hope they will be by the time I am at the starting line. Next week is a real down week and I will not be doing any leg weights from here on out and I think that will have me bouncing off the walls by the time I go the the Race Expo and pick up my bib and timing chip.

After my run I spent a bit of time reading about Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope since this has made the headlines given that the annual Terry Fox Run is taking place this coming Sunday. I watched some CBC archived footage and listened to radio interviews that he did during his journey from St. John's NFLD until he was forced to end his run in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I was a little kid at the time and my family moved to Canada during the Summer when Terry Fox was running, but I don't remember anything from that time. I wish I had been made aware of it at the time, but I suppose learning to speak English and adapting to a whole new country and culture was completely consuming for me and my family. I don't even think we had a television for quite a while and I wonder if my parents were interested in what was happening. He would have been passing through Ontario at the time when we arrived and so our paths in Ottawa almost crossed. It was big news by the time he made it to our Nation's Capital, but I have no idea if it even registered on our radar.

However, after watching the footage available through the above link I was left with the question that is the title of this post: How hard can it be? What he did on one good leg, with an artificial leg of antiquated technology that was not designed for running and created all sorts of problems both physical and mechanical, makes my pathetic attempt to run a marathon pale in comparison. I know it will be tough, but it is a joke to even try and compare it to what Terry Fox accomplished. That, perhaps more than even looking back at my training for reassurance, gives me confidence. I hope that in the latter stages of the race, when I am in pain and probably wondering if quitting is not a bad option after all, keeps me going and pushes me to the finish line.