Confession by Grant Watley

I've got another confession today. Sunday October 9th will be a first for me, as I’ll be running in my first ever marathon!
 
I’m really excited to get this first marathon under my belt and after a couple of great training weeks and long runs the past month, I’m feeling confident heading into the race.  I decided to run the Chicago Marathon for a couple reasons.  First, my wife and I have always loved Chicago!  The downtown area is packed with places to see, things to do, and places to eat.  Secondly, it’s a major marathon and I wanted to make sure to do a big one that includes a lot of scenery throughout the race.  Lastly, my little brother Logan has run Chicago before and as you’ll find out by the end of this blog post, we are mildly competitive in my family.
 
Now the big question, why did I finally decide to run a marathon?  I own 605 Running Co. with my two little brothers Logan and Paul.  I’m 16 months older than Logan three and a half years older than Paul.  Growing up, we were always competitive with each other.  Going head to head in football, basketball, kick ball, baseball, wrestling, soda drinking, video games, and pretty much anything else you could possibly turn into a competition. My daughter Payton’s first birthday party turned into an eight person free for all wrestling match that my brothers and I started.  We even turned to competitive showering to see who could shower the fastest (45 seconds for the family best, although we had a friend that was able to complete the requirements for a shower in 33 seconds, also, I should note the competitive showering was based on the honor system.  We never checked to make sure that the rules were followed).  So needless to say, much to the dismay of our mother, we are extremely competitive with each other.
 
One thing that has never been very competitive in our house was running.  Logan has pretty much always been the fastest runner, other than a brief two-year period when Logan was in middle school.  He was a two-time state champion in the 3,200m in high school, ran a 4:11 mile in college, and has a marathon personal best of 2:50:59 from the 2011 Chicago Marathon.  Meanwhile, I was always a slightly above average runner and Paul was the starting center on the football team for three years and didn’t start running until track season of his senior year.  Logan holds the Watley family record at every race distance possible, but despite his impressive marks, he has yet to run a complete marathon (Has to walk every marathon and can still run a 2:50 marathon, impressively disgusting if you ask me).  Every time he has run in a marathon, he has attempted to hit a mark in the 2:30 range and goes out at an blistering pace, but anytime you are trying for a mark that fast, everything needs to go right for you to finish a race that long at that pace and that is where Logan has struggled.
 
Looking to finally get a running achievement on Logan, I decided last spring to train to run a complete marathon.  Not an easy task no matter what the pace is.  When I started training in March, I could not of cared less about what time I ran in the marathon.  It could be 12 hours as long as I kept running.  My only goal was to not walk and I was nervous about being able to complete that goal.  The last 8 weeks of training have been great and now I’ve expanded my goals.  Obviously, I want to finish without walking, but I’ve added the time goals of trying to run a sub 3:39 marathon.  I think I could go under 3:30, but since this is my first marathon, I want to be more cautious on my pace early on.  I don’t think I’ll ever be able to nab the Watley marathon record from Logan but being able to run a complete marathon before him is attainable (As long as he doesn’t read this and go find a marathon to run on October 8).
 
October is a big month for racing at the store.  On October 9th, I’ll be running in Chicago for my first marathon, Benson will be running in Minneapolis in his marathon debut, and Greg will be shooting for a new half-marathon personal best out at Crazy Horse.  Then the following week, Kelli will be competing in her first half marathon in Des Moines!
 
Happy Running,
 
Grant Watley
Store Owner, Director of Private Coaching
605 Running Co.

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