Challenging Myself

Yesterday was one of my full throttle days again. At work by 10, took an Italian test (which I aced!), spent the whole afternoon here working on my paper, had to return my tv cable box to the office on the outskirts of town (what's the point of having more than 30 channels if you don't have the time to watch them?), went to the gym for two hours (I've become one of *those* people, but man, are my triceps sore today from upping my weights on them), came home, ate dinner, watched an episode of Frasier, and then worked on my paper until 11PM when I finally said, enough is enough and went to bed. I'm back hard at work on my paper... but I'm taking a few minutes break.

The other night I was talking to my mom, and she confessed how much she weighed in at. Huh. I was really surprised. So, I stepped up to the plate and challenged her, and in turn, challenged myself. I want her to walk the Philadelphia Half-Marathon with me in November. It's 13.1 miles, and we both have a week's vacation starting the day after the marathon, which will give us some recovery time. She participated in the 2006 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer, and walked all 60 miles over the course of a three day period. However, since then, she's really not kept up with her walking. My mom is getting older, and I want her to be active and healthy rather than falling into that easy trap of not exercising. So, while I'm home in July, we're going to start our training, taking walks in the evening, and getting her on the course for training on her own once I come back to the Sticks.

Have any of you walked a marathon or a half-marathon? Any advice?