Marathoning for Marriage

The magical time is over….it is now down to the business of “everyday-ness”.  The romantic notions are fading a bit, and more common are the blood, sweat, and tears of perseverance.

Mike and I have been running hard core for a few months now, and while we’re still really enjoying it, trying to fit it into our daily life around work, kids, and other activities is getting tough.  Now that our marathon training mileage is really increasing, we are feeling the pain and fatigue that comes with it; gone are the easy days of 3-4 mile runs and the fanciful dream of completing 26.2 miles in a really long time.

This training is alot like our marriage.  The rubber has hit the road and it’s time to put up or shut up, pardon the bad cliches.  Just like our running honeymoon ended, our marriage honeymoon ended and real life sank in.

Mike and I had an awesome week long honeymoon in Italy.  It was a dream trip, one that I was amazed my new husband planned down to the last detail for us.  We ate incredible food, toured Florence, Venice, and Tuscany, and enjoyed a wonderful first few days of marriage together.  If you ignore the misfortune of my cheap curling iron absolutely frying my bangs the day after we got to Florence because of electricity differences (yes, I did use a socket adaptor), I couldn’t have asked for any better.

When we returned from Europe, we were unprepared for how hard life can be on newlyweds.  We both worked full-time jobs, I had no clue how to run a household, and the fact that Mike and I have basically polar opposite personality types made living together for the first time a trying experience.   So much for the romantic dinners with great food and wine, strolls on the Ponte Vecchio, relaxing boat rides through the canals of Venice….nope, it was now about learning to work hard in a relationship, love sacrificially, and realize that the kind of marriage we wanted, that 26.2 Mile Marriage, was only going to come as the result of pain and training, and hopefully as few DNF’s along the way as possible.

Life is even more complex now, six years into marriage, than it was as newlyweds.  We have three kids, (5 if you include our goober dogs), a mortgage, jobs, and numerous responsibilities.  Mike and I have to be incrediblly intentional about our marriage, just as we need to be in our marathon training, to reach our goals.  Simply having good intentions never won any races, literally or figuratively.

Even though it’s getting tough trying to fit my runs in, I’m a little grateful for it because it is reminding me of my priorities, and pointing out areas where I might be slipping a bit, becoming complacent.  I know that just because the honeymoon is over doesn’t mean that I won’t have wonderful times again.  I appreciate running so much more now, and have noticed an marked increase in my endurance.  The same is so with my marriage…the love and respect I had for Mike at our wedding was paltry compared to the way I feel now, and so many of the issues that would have caused nuclear war between us in those early years just cause ripples now.

Because I know these things, I’m so much more motivated to hang in through the long haul.  I don’t have to be afraid when the honeymoon ends…it was really only just a taste of the good things to come.