Well, the decision has finally been made. I will not be running the New Jersey Marathon.

How did I get to that final decision?

For those of you who follow my little blog on a regular basis you know how hard this training season has been for me health-wise. That kidney stone is one tough mother. It survived the shockwave procedure. I still experience sharp pains when I try to run hard.

Now let’s throw in how I have been feeling about this marathon. After initially being excited about it my heart just wasn’t into this. My long runs, which I normally enjoy, were chores. My running should never feel like that.

The stress I was feeling from not being able to train consistently and at the level where I felt it should be at was taking a toll. I was becoming incredibly depressed and not very forgiving of myself. I was in a horrible funk that not even my closest friends could get me out of it.

Before this past weekend’s NYC Half Marathon I had an idea of what I wanted to do. My first goal was to run the race at my marathon goal pace and my second was to complete it with same pace that I finished the NYC Marathon. In the back of my mind I sort of knew these would both be very hard to accomplish and knew I would soon make the decision not pull out of the NJ Marathon.

At about mile six I knew I would not be able to run the race my goal pace for the marathon and then at mile eight I knew I would not be able to meet my second goal pace. It was then that I knew I would not run the marathon.

But the great thing is that instead of feeling bummed out I felt a tremendous sense of relief. Granted I still tried to at least hit my second goal but I was ok if I did not make it. By the time I hit the Battery Tunnel I knew it for sure and I was still ok with it.

After the race I told my best buddy, the one who has dealt head on with my depression over my training that I wanted to run the NJ Half Marathon with her. She’s on board.

I still don’t think I ran a great half marathon but I did get a course PR so that is at least something and I’m satisfied with that. I know I have more work to do but at least I don’t have the weight of a marathon I don’t want to run on my shoulders.

I’m not sure if a spring marathon will be in my future with unpredictable winters but we’ll see. Right now I’m looking forward to running my 20^th half marathon in Sleepy Hollow with Doreen (see above about best buddy) and just enjoying it. No goals for this one expect to have fun.

I don’t have any goals for the NJ Half either but do plan on training harder for the Brooklyn Half in May. But I still have to go through round two of this kidney stone procedure so I also know that I have to be more realistic about what I can accomplish at this time.

My realistic goals for right now are to be a little less harder on myself, refocus on my running, rest my body a bit, and just enjoy the fact that I can run.