Guest Post by Janet Cook

Oh, hey. Hi! Coming at you from Hood River, Oregon, where I live, run, work, play. Of late, I’m also training for the upcoming New York City Marathon on Nov. 5, which has me exchanging lots of daily text messages with Becky. In one of them, she asked me to make a guest appearance on her blog, so here I am.

I’ve been a lifelong runner, having started on a youth team at age 10 in my running-crazed hometown of Boulder, Colorado. I ran competitively through high school, continued running for sanity through college (where I met Becky!), and then just kept on running for the pure joy of it all the way until, well, now. Which means I’ve been enjoying the perks and enduring the inevitable pains of running for 47 years.

Through all that time, I’ve run a lot of races and completed lots of distances — but never a marathon. In Becky’s early years as a marathon runner, she tried to get me to join her, but I always had an excuse. Too busy this, too caught up in that. Well, now that I could have a legitimate excuse (my aging body! My aching knees/hips/ankles!), I decided this is one of the things I really want to do. Better late than never, I guess.

So, in the spirit of imparting my take on this marathon journey, I offer a kernel of wisdom that lies at the heart of this whole thing and actually has nothing to do with running: Get yourself a friend who’s always up for an adventure. Last fall, after stalking all the NYC Marathon social media sites I could find post-race as I do every year, and watching video after video of all the hoopla, I had an epiphany. This is the one marathon I’ve always wanted to run, and I would run it next year. With Becky. She didn’t know that my epiphany involved her, but a quick text took care of that. She is, after all, the one friend I have who I can message saying, essentially, Hey, wanna do this crazy thing with me? and she responds, verbatim, Let’s do this!!! and then we actually do it. So here we are, with only a month to go before toeing the line at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island.

Even though we live in different states, training for NYC “together” has been so much more fun than if I had been doing this alone. Plus, as a first-time marathoner, I’ve gotten invaluable advice and recommendations from Becky on everything from foot-strengthening exercises to fueling on long runs to the pros and cons of various hydration belts. We don’t get to run together very often (we have managed it on a couple of occasions when I happened to be in the Santa Barbara area) but we connect daily, checking in on each other’s runs and comparing notes on cross-training activities, strength-building regimens, fueling strategies, running attire, challenges, triumphs, aches and pains, and life in general. I treasure all of it. A training pal who you can run with in real life is ideal, but this is the next best thing.

Probably the biggest takeaway for me on this, my first marathon journey, can be summed up by one of my favorite quotes from the poet Robert Burns: The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Since Becky and I signed up with Team for Kids early on, pledging to raise money for a great charity that brings free running programs to kids all over the country in exchange for guaranteed entry to the marathon, we had plenty of time to discuss our goals, come up with a target finish time and formulate our training plans. I landed on a 20-week plan that seemed to balance this being my first marathon with the fact that I’m a fairly seasoned runner starting with a relatively solid base. Last spring, as April turned to May, I was doing my usual “maintenance” running, getting out four or five days a week for a few easy miles. But I couldn’t wait to get started on my real marathon training.

Finally mid-June arrived and I launched my 20-week plan right on schedule. I followed it to a T for the first week, running exactly the prescribed miles on running days and cross-training when indicated, doing core and strength exercises, and dutifully taking a rest day. Basically crushing this marathon training thing! Then, on Day 7, I broke my ribs. (Long story short, I crashed on my wingfoil board.) In case you were wondering, running with broken ribs is impossible. I could barely move for a few days; a trip from the couch to the bathroom felt like climbing Everest. Then it was a couple of weeks of walking gingerly, looking like I was carrying a vessel filled with water on my head (and moving about as fast).

I regrouped, and four weeks after my crash started a 16-week marathon training plan. Needless to say, it has not gone entirely as planned. Setbacks have included a flare-up of plantar fasciitis from jump-starting my running after weeks of doing practically nothing on my feet; some unwanted but necessary days off for travel; a wonky knee following an unruly downhill leg on Oregon’s annual 200-mile Hood to Coast Relay, which I do every August with my team of 12; a few days laid flat by a bug my son brought home from school; and grumpy quads from ramping up my mileage too quickly, forcing me to reduce said mileage until they became more cooperative.

Whenever I hit a bump in the road that makes me veer from my training plan, I freak out a little about whether I’ll be able to get the starting line — or, really, the finish line. Fortunately, Becky is always there with some words of wisdom to calm me down. After I fire off a text lamenting my latest issue along with a bunch of stress emojis, she sends back gems like, “Success simply means getting to the start, having fun, and crossing the finish line, no matter what pace.” And “…throw out all expectations of what you think you ‘should’ be doing and just enjoy the fact that you GET to run the NY-freaking-marathon …” When I was laid up with the virus my kid brought home, she walked me through a visualization of the course, which I’ve now incorporated into my routine. It came with this sage advice: “Our minds are what’s going to make this happen. Our bodies are just along for the glorious ride.”

And, training setbacks aside, a glorious ride it’s been. My weekly long runs have prompted me to expand my horizons beyond the few 3- to 5-mile routes close to my house that I dearly love, but have run so many times I could practically do with a blindfold on. I’ve made friends with some sheep in a pasture I run by on one of my new routes, and chat with a friendly Bernese mountain dog who always greets me on another. Running alongside pear and apple orchards that I normally whiz by in a car allows me to see — and smell! — the fruit up close.

My training has spanned two seasons now, and I’ve had a front row seat to the change from summer to fall. Early in my training, the long Pacific Northwest days allowed me to indulge my love for sunset runs. I could set out at 8 p.m. and cruise along under red-orange skies that faded to purple as I finished my miles. Now, with the shorter days, I run earlier and have even developed a newfound affection for morning runs in the cool, crisp fall air. Running every day (or nearly) has a strange way of slowing down time. From one day to the next, I see leaves turn from green to yellow and red, then fall to the ground. I witness practically in real time the subtle change in light and shadows as the sun drifts south.

Ever since I started running as a 10-year-old, fall has always reminded me of cross country season. So it feels right that I’m here, in yet another autumn running season, striding toward New York and the longest run I’ve ever done. I feel immense gratitude that I’m still able to do this thing that brings me so much joy. I have to listen to my body more, compromise, forego a few miles here and there in favor of staying healthy and running again tomorrow. The best-laid plans, I’ve come to know, must sometimes be replaced with alternate plans. But that’s ok. Onward I go to that starting line on Staten Island — and, with a little luck and Becky by my side, to the finish line in Central Park.

I wonder what our next crazy adventure together will be?