Today’s Runners’ Lounge “Take it and Run Thursday” question involves giving advice on how to conquer a marathon…in 26 words or less. I have yet to conquer that marathon. Other than in training runs, I have yet to conquer the half-marathon (though I have indeed broken that 13.1 mark a few times on my regular long runs).
But since I came so close to racing the half, and since I know that the same general principle would have applied had it been a full marathon that I’d had to drop from, I feel qualified to give this advice:
Don’t overdo the training.
Sense you’ve bitten off too much? You probably have.
Rest days aren’t the enemy, and chill on the speed, newbies.
Trust me.
Cross-training continues to go well, and my tendinitis has vanished in the mist. My new problem? I’m turning into a real pro at getting myself lost while bike riding. You can just get to so many new unfamiliar spots when you’re covering the extra ground that wheels provide; my drive to travel new directions and not get bored on the same old rides, over and over, is sort of dangerous – especially when it’s still dark outside. My little lights may let people see me, but they aren’t doing enough to let me see things like street signs or identifiable landmarks.
Locals will hopefully understand my “ack!” moment of the morning, when I realized that not only had I wound up turned around and not gone in the direction I intended to go, but that I was now on a street (North Memorial) that gets regularly featured in the police blotter of our newspaper (often for violent crimes), and that a small group of people gathered and talking in hushed tones on a corner nearby had all turned to stare at me. It definitely set off alarms in my head, and I turned and pedaled as fast as I could toward the slight glow of sunrise on the horizon – east takes you toward the lake and toward more people, and that was all I had time to process in my efforts to navigate out of there. One of the guys shouted something at me as I skedaddled, and it didn’t sound friendly at all. 
(I suppose it could have been “You lost?” or something like that; panic makes me paranoid.) Joy, I did have my cell phone, but stopping to use it wasn’t the first thing on my mind.
Jeez. I was trying to stay on main streets, so I’d have the benefit of streetlights, but talk about backfiring. I don’t suppose anybody around me would be up for 6 AM bike rides twice a week? Power in numbers? 
Until then, or if I can’t find anybody, I believe I’ll map out four or five solid, safe routes and rotate through them, rather than try to orient on the fly. I’d hate to have to learn a lesson through hindsight yet again, though I’m really good at doing that.
(Don’t freak on me; I am taking it seriously.)
Nag nag – wear light/reflective clothing too!
Do you have a cell phone with you when biking? Cross training is so smart, I remember well doing this, and how it kept me from getting bored.
They do have headlights for bikes, too–you might consider investing in one. They’re not even too dopey-looking! Mostly they look like super-sleek fancy LEDs, but they’re not too expensive and certainly worth it for safety reasons. (I required my husband to purchase one when he started biking after dark.)