You’re not an expert just because it’s your second time around

You’re constantly battling fear when training for your first marathon.

Fear that missing a single run is going to cause you to not be able to cross the finish line on the big day, thus making all of that training a waste. Fear of the distance. Fear of running in front of large crowds, of injuries, of what you’re going to eat the night before and any other litany of factors that in the end seem to take care of themselves on the big day.

The second marathon, for me at least, has been about needing to be humbled. About needing to be reminded that just because I’ve run one before doesn’t mean the second one is going to be easier if you don’t do your homework along the way.

Three weeks out from running my second Chicago Marathon, and I’m fully in the humbled phase.

I had so much fun running my first marathon that I decided to sign up for my second one as I was icing my knees the day after. No, really.

I — like at least some running their second marathon — came into my second marathon training cycle fully confident not only that I could run the marathon because hey, I already did it once before, but I was going to cut 45 minutes to an hour off my time (5:21 in the 2017 Chicago Marathon). I was in better physical shape coming into this one, having run two ten mile races and a half marathon in between crossing the finish line in 2017 and officially starting training in 2018. And, hey, unlike last year, I actually knew what it was like to run a marathon.

Easy, right?

So this time around, I decided it would be fine to skip the occasional training run. It started off with one of the shorter weekday runs, usually a 3–5 miler because what’s 3–5 miles when you’re going to be running roughly 8x that distance in a couple of months, right? I made minimal changes to my diet because, again, I’ve already ran one of these plus what’s the point in running marathons if you can’t treat yourself a little?

The not following the training plan to a tee, not changing my diet, not really taking training as seriously as I probably should have came to a head on Sunday during our 20 mile training run, something of a dress rehearsal for the marathon itself.

It was hot, it was humid, it was just a generally unpleasant day to run two miles, let alone 20, and I was battling a mild ankle sprain that happened when I stepped on some uneven pavement during the 16 mile run a couple of weeks back.

It was during the 20 miler when my own inability to take training seriously caught up to me. Between the heat and the humidity and the fact that I had missed a couple of those midweek runs, I had easily the worst training run of this cycle, walking around 4–5 miles of it partly because my foot was bothering me but also partly because, well, I hadn’t done all of my homework coming into this test.

I knew the 20 miler was coming, and based on last year, I knew it was going to be a rough day weather wise. I should have known better.

Just because you’ve done something once doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to do it better the second time around. That goes for just about anything in life, but it’s especially true for running a marathon.

The good news for me at least is I’ve got three weeks to correct my mistakes before my first challenge rolls around in the form of the Chicago Marathon on October 7th, and then another three weeks to apply any lessons learned from THAT experience when I run the Marine Corps Marathon in DC on October 28th. I’ve got three weeks to adjust my diet, allow my body to heal, cross train, do whatever I’ve gotta do.

But one thing I’ve learned throughout all this is if I’m going to run a fourth marathon, I can’t treat it like it’s an easy task just because I’ve done it before.

To learn more about Open Heart Magic, which has more than 120 volunteers that go around to Chicago hospitals and teach kids how to do magic tricks and is the charity that I’m running the Chicago Marathon for, please click here and consider donating.