Introduction - Who the heck is Adam, anyway?

The short answer is, well, me. Hi, I'm Adam. I'm 33, and, as you may have deduced from the title of this page, I'm going to be running a marathon; something I've never done before.

Now, I'm not new to running. I started in 2017, and to date have just under 1,200 miles on my legs. My first race was in 2018, and I've been doing them ever since. (Rather unfortunate timing to have gotten into racing, given 2020 was around the corner, but I digress.) I've done countless 5Ks, a handful of 10Ks, a 12K, and three half marathons, most recently in July 2024. My PRs are nothing incredible, but are at least, in my opinion, respectable. (For more on any of these stories, you'll have to wait for the blog posts about them.)

In the rare moments I'm not running, I wear many other, generally less sweaty, hats. Single dad, photographer, tee ball manager (go Bulls!), musician, sports fanatic, Lego enthusiast, puzzle builder, chicken tender, and dog dad hats, to be specific. Yes, I have a large hat rack.

Why am I writing this blog? Does the internet really need another mid-30's white man talking about his training for a marathon? Probably not, but luckily, the internet, and you, are getting it anyway. My hopes with this page are numerous. On the surface, I hope to make you laugh a little, maybe we'll both learn a little, I'll do more than a little complaining, and we can share in this experience together. Documenting my training will help keep me accountable to actually do the training, and to reflect on it in writing will only help to identify strengths and weaknesses. However, I also have hopes that someone out there will read this and see that they, too, could do this. They'll see that there's nothing inherently special about me, and no reason they couldn't find themselves in my shoes (likely outrunning me in them.)

I realize I say all of this, and then am going to start posting about 8, 10, and 12 mile training runs in the early weeks of this program. What I do hope is clear is the amount of time and work put in to reach even these distances. I realize nobody could, or at least should, just decide to go for a run and hit 8 miles on their first go. (In case it's not clear - don't do this.) As I'm sure I'll detail later, being undertrained has led me to more than a few injuries of varying severity; including getting to wear a boot for weeks after my second half marathon. But with time, dedication, and ungodly quantities of running shoes and ibuprofen; the average, physically healthy person can get to where I am and where I am going.

This was supposed to be a brief overview of myself and my goals here, and it's already gotten away from me. You'll see I struggle with brevity.

I do hope you'll join me, I'll even do all the running. I'll be making a couple posts per week, likely one narrative type post and one to recap the previous week's training. Also make sure to follow on Facebook and Instagram, which do look a little barren now, but I expect that to change as this blog ramps up.

Thanks for reading this far! Now, let's go for a run.

-Adam