written by Val Pate ROTY 2014
She is also one of the coaches and a pretty bad ass lady.
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1. It will change your life. Seriously – there’s nothing like setting a stretch goal, and then doing whatever it takes to complete it, especially when you do it alongside a group of friends
2. You will learn that the experience is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. Showing up every week, in all kinds of weather, running mile after mile at a conversational pace with an awesome group of people – I promise you, you will look forward to it! 
3. It’s a great way to bridge the time gap between the depths of winter, and the beginning of spring – you start out running and its cold….and rainy…and then the weather starts to improve, and then its SPRING, and you start to see the FLOWERS! And at some point, you can wear SHORTS!!!
4. There’s many ways to be healthy – and different things work for different people – but this training taught me once and for all to stop worrying about how my body looks, and start focusing on what it can do.
5. You will become an expert in self-care. Marathon training taught me to take care of myself – I knew that I was asking my body to do something big, so I developed some very healthy habits for the sole purpose of my success on my long runs.
6. You will learn that some of your training days will be great, and some of them will absolutely suck. I still remember my suckiest run during marathon training, and I remember what Coach Pamela told me: “now you know you can have a sucky run and that you will not die”. I’m no longer scared of having a bad day. It’s a metaphor…trust me.
7. If you have little kids, you will be their idol. If you have older kids, you will develop a certain amount of “street cred” with them. There’s nothing like responding to their whininess with, “and just how many miles did YOU run, today”? I recently had to play my “marathon card” as a response to a crisis of confidence in my house. I provided a reminder that just because you’re doing something that’s hard, or that not many people have done, it doesn’t mean you can’t do it. That’s a life lesson for all of us.
8. You will learn not to get intimidated by overwhelming tasks. At first glance, the marathon training plan looks huge and complex. But if you take it one week at a time (or even one mile at a time if you need to) all of a sudden you’ll realize that you are DOING it. For me, this was one of the biggest life lessons I gained from marathon training.
9. Cake. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention cake. It tastes even better than you thought it could, along with anything else you might consume after running 15 miles.
10. Seriously, it will change your life. Everything becomes a metaphor – the uphills, the downhills, the goals, getting to the starting line, getting to the finish line, supporting your friends, letting them support you. Its all here – I promise.
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Our marathon training starts in a couple weeks. It’s awesome. I promise.