Hi Healthy Happier Bear readers! I’m Meghan from Little Girl in the Big World! When Ashley asked me to share my story her marathons + moderation series I was excited, because after running Disney on January 13th, I haven’t been able to stop thinking or talking about the marathon! What a true beast it is in the most beautiful way!

My journey to the marathon started indirectly in March 2011 when I started the Couch to 5k Program. I started it just to lost weight, but when I got some encouragement from a co-worker who had run a few marathons, I knew a half marathon was doable for me. If you had told me when I stepped out the door those first few weeks that in less than two years I’d be running a marathon I wouldn’t have believed you for even a second. I hated running for all of my life up to that point!

But after running Disney’s Wine and Dine Half Marathon as my first half, I knew that running was something that was going to become a part of me. I could write an entire post (and I probably will at some point) on what running has done for me, and I without question wouldn’t be the person I am today without it. Two of the things that are the most important to me are my relatively new commitment to a healthy lifestyle and my ability to continue pursuing goals that I set for myself even after going to college and grad school and securing a job that I’m happy with.

I’m not sure what it was that made me decide to run the Walt Disney World Marathon, but I think it had something to do with the 20th Anniversary medal and the 20-mile spectacular. I wanted to be a part of an entire event, not just a race. So after getting married in July and then having pretty serious abdominal surgery in August, I decided that I was going to make it happen. The surgery went well enough that I knew I’d be able to train after my six-week recovery period was over (I talked to my doctor, who is a runner, and she said it was fine), so I was able to sign up when the race was at 98% capacity. I just made it, and I was so glad.

But what came next was training, and this is where my moderation came in. Though I definitely had to moderate social time and other activities in my life, the thing that I had to moderate the most was my mind. It has been my biggest enemy and roadblock on my path to achieving goals. It’s not that I doubt myself or that I don’t think I’m able to do something from the get go, it’s just that while I’m in the process I am constantly questioning if I’m capable of finishing a certain run or a certain workout.

My mind is absolutely what I’ve had to moderate on long runs, tempo runs, and speed sessions, because if I let myself believe the occasional negative thought that would come through my head, I probably would have stopped before I had gotten to the starting line. Because I did most of my training alone, I had ample time to think. And while I sometimes thought about work, friends, things I needed to do, my mind would frequently throw in thoughts like, “your hip is hurting! You should cut this run a few miles short!” or, “you don’t need to run this fast to go the time you want. Just slow down a little bit.” Of course I would also doubt myself sometimes as well. There would be times that runs didn’t go as well as I had hoped or things were harder than they should have been, and the idea that maybe I wouldn’t be able to run 26.2 miles. And that was when my heart had to step in.

It was really heart over mind that got me to the starting line, and ultimately the finish line of the Disney Marathon. My heart wanted to do this to prove to myself that I could. I had set a goal with my heart, and I wasn’t about to physically allow anything to get in my way. Even during the race, it was the continued battle between what I knew was true and what my mind was trying to convince me at the time. Talk about mental games! They are sure to arise during training and especially during a first marathon.

But in the end, I did it! I ran 26.2 miles (in reality I ran 26.61 miles because of all of the weaving), I got the medal I had signed up for, and I became a true running addict. I had pushed myself to a point I would have never thought possible earlier in my life, and I did it all by letting my heart continue to believe that it was all possible. It wasn’t pretty, and the race was pretty warm. I didn’t hit my goal times, but I later learned that I probably shouldn’t have set those anyways.

The marathon is a distance to be respected. My advice to anyone that’s training or looking to run their first would be to believe in yourself and to believe in your training. Your mind will try to convince you that you’re weak or not capable at times, but you are! I wrote a recap of some more details of the actual miles along the way, and I kept all my training on my blog. I’m already planning my fall marathon, and I’m really excited to use everything that I learned in this training cycle and race to improve myself on marathon number 2!