I thought I could just quietly sign up for a marathon, and if I couldn’t run the whole thing, I would do the half.

Then, I got an email:

Hi Professor Ahmad,

Happy spring break! I hope you’ve been doing well.

I just wanted to reach out because I’m running the Tomoka Marathon in a few weeks and I noticed that your name was also on the participant list. I wasn’t sure if this was you or someone with the same name, but I thought I would reach out and ask because that’s so awesome!

My training has been off and on, but I am pretty sure I can complete the marathon. The largest distance I have completed this year is 8 miles, but I think I can go the distance. The problem may be the pacers.

I needed to get new shoes. I opted for Brooks Adrenaline GTS 21.

Additional gear

• Visor
• Sunglasses
• Running belt with water bottles
• GU packs
• Athletic pants with zipper
• Microfiber shirt

Sebring, Debary, and Cocoa have marathons scheduled for the fall. Late April also has one in Clearwater, but Ramadan marathoning isn’t quite something I can do. And a summer marathon would be hard as well.

I did 7.25 miles yesterday. And need to do 30-60 minutes of running each day or every other day before the race.

I got a treadmill desk attachment along with a standing desk converter to help with being able to train and stand for long periods of time. I used the Half Marathon Training Audible book, but doubled the runs, because I was doing a full.

By this time next week, I would have run a marathon, or a least have a better idea how to run one, iA.