My name is Tim, and some of you may know me as the Beer Runner.
You can forget that right now.
I’m still running and drinking beer every day, and this week I’ll mark 500 consecutive days of partaking in both. I’m still writing about the intersection of craft beer and fitness over at my Beer Runner blog.
But that’s not what this is about.
Here on the dailymile blog, I’m going to chronicle my experiences as coach of 
DetermiNation Milwaukee, a team training for the half and full marathon while raising money for the American Cancer Society.
It’s my fifth season of coaching a non-profit fundraising team, and my first with DetermiNation. In this blog, I want to focus on the journey to our race on May 27th, both as a coach and through the eyes of my team, many of whom are competing in their first race of this distance.
So let’s start with my first thing I tell all my runners. You can do more than you realize.
It’s a cliche because it’s true, but it’s something long-term runners take for granted. For many new runners, double digit miles seems like it might as well be an ultramarathon.
Then something happens. For new runners, the first practice is almost always harder than the 10th. Before you know it you’re doing more than you thought you could. Five, seven, then 10 miles and beyond.
It doesn’t come overnight, but it gets easier as you go along. There’s a transformation that takes place with consistent training.
Speedwork, PRs, and other running nerdery will all come later. To begin, you just have to believe that you can start and somehow you’ll get to where you want to be.
One day, you will wake up and call yourself a runner.
