Races!

Ryan asked me what races I was planning, and I’ve been meaning to post on it for awhile. First off, I love racing. I have no trouble getting out and doing my runs if I don’t have a race, but I love the ritual of it all, I love the challenge, and I love meeting other runners. I’ve done a couple little 10Ks since Jasper was born, but nothing where I had to really dig deep and push myself out of my comfort zone. I am looking forward to the race season in about 8 weeks or so.

In Texas, the racing “season” really starts in October and goes through abut April-May. Other than the Frankenthon marathon in October, I am undecided on what my goals are. There are a couple contingencies. 1. If I qualify for the Boston marathon, and if it isn’t full, I would like to do that in April. 2. If I get invited to pace the Austin marathon again. that would be a priority. Both of those are big “ifs”. I’ll run Austin no matter what, but if I get invited to be a pacer, it becomes a little more of a time commitment with some of the practice runs. Other wise, I am not sure what I want to do. There is a series of races leading up to the Austin marathon called the Distance Challenge and one year I did it. I ran a great marathon, because I used each progressively longer race as a big speed effort. I might do that again this year. The only challenge of it is having all the weekends there are races free. The distances are really not challenging for someone who has done a marathon before.

I am enjoying running “faster” . That is a relative term, because I am by no means, “fast”. But, I have been running a lot faster than when I was training for 50 milers, etc. Due to the fact that Jasper is so little, unpredictable on his sleep, still nursing, etc, this may be the year I just concentrate on the marathon and 50K distance. So, I will probably do either the Waco run or Prickly Pear run next spring. I would probably pick the one that more friends are going to, as both are about equal in travel time, fun, and both are well done. That is a long way off though.

I would like to make myself a race “schedule ” though and schedule rest/ down time in between efforts. The huge time I took off long runs did teach me that week after week of really long runs was tightening up my back, and I think if I want to have longevity in this hobby of mine, I need to have some periods of lighter running from time to time.

The great thing is we have so many races in this area. You really could do something every weekend if you wanted to. Other than Boston, I will not be traveling out of state to any races, but there is so much here that is really well done, and challenging that there is no need to do out of town races. I am really looking forward to getting back to racing and I look forward to hearing my friends’ plans. After watching from the sidelines last year, I can’t wait to join everyone again.

A side note….the photo is from the Antelope Island 50K near Salt Lake City, Utah. It was 32 degrees and spitting snow. It was a fantastic race, but I was sooooo cold.