Tuesday, June 21, 2011

No fall marathon?!?!?!

I made a foolish choice this year and hedged my bets on the New York Marathon. And I did not get in. Unfortunately, in the time it took for them to let me know, I missed registration for the Marine Corps and the Chicago marathons. Now I find that I'm somewhat uninterested in trying to find a replacement one. It seems very strange not to have one looming in the future (of course, it would be overshadowed anyway by the ultramarathon approaching this July).

So instead, I am signing up for half marathons. So far, I have one in September and one in October. One with my mom (Philly Rock N Roll) and one in Hershey, PA - chocolate AND running!!!! I am pretty pumped and I am hoping that I can improve my speed by doing a few shorter races.

This past weekend, I did a 10 mile race in Baltimore. It was a lot more hilly than expected, but I finished in 1:28:08. I am at the point where I am in the top 100 for my age/gender group and sometimes even better (placing 22nd out of 745 with a pace of 7:07/mile for a 5k). I am pretty proud of that. If I could work on my speed AND my distance, I think I could really step it up in my marathons.

The thing about that, however, is that if you want to improve your marathon time you have to actually DO a marathon...