It's Official

I sent in my registration for Marathon to Marathon today. Starts in Storm Lake, IA and finishes in Marathon, IA...same day as Grandma's, June 17, only a 6 am start...ughh...

My year started off weird. I knew I wanted to run some bigger race, just wasn’t sure what. Half of full?? A couple of halves?? There was the option of the Country Music Marathon (of which I’m not a fan of country, but I was all set to go for it) and considered the Flying Pig cause I have friends that live near Cincinnati and have wanted to do it since I first heard the name…I was going to to possibly do the full, but changed my mind to the half for Arizona Rock n Roll, then a friend had to back out cause of back pain and instead I just went to Arizona for a much needed vacation a little later. That still left me thinking…should I do CMM (couldn’t afford it after my trip to AZ) should I consider Flying Pig (really thought about surprising people and showing up for the half since I had miles to fly free AND friends to stay with) but then Disney came up and I lack some vacation time…so that put me back at the question of what I was doing…although a lot of this was more recent.

Back in January I also thought long ad hard about Grandma’s. A friend was running it and had a place to stay, I could crash with her…it’s the 30th anniversary, I could’ve done it since it was my first on my 30th, but I also just hate repeating…I’m not one to do the same course over and over, I like trying new things…then I found Marathon to Marathon, tiny race through corn fields, I’ll definitely need music for this one, but it ends in Marathon. If I can’t do the Greek marathon, maybe I can do one that at least has a name connection!! So that has been on my mind for a long time now. I never quite fully committed myself though. After I registered for Disney, I mentioned to my grandma she should come out for that and see family, she knew I was looking at the marathon in Iowa though and since it’s close to home, it’s easy for her to get to, and she was hoping she’d see me run there. As soon as I read grandma's letter mentioning that, it sealed the deal. M2M it is. Then I had the breakthrough 20 miler that definitely said yes, I can have a good marathon, that was the date I was going to register, and it slipped my mind…but the training has been going so well, so much better than anything I ever imagined…So today (meant to send it yesterday but missed mail pickup) I officially sent my registration form in. It’s set. We have camping reservations, mom and dad will be bringing their fifth wheel, I might set up my tent, we’ll see. It should be fun…I actually looked and the person that won in my age group last year ran a time that this year might even be on track to what I’m running, an advantage to running such a small race?? Not as many fast people?? Could I maybe place well?? Not something I'm really thinking about, I just want to get my time goals, but hey, one can dream right? I also have friends coming up from Missouri to run as well, so that will be really fun.

Then there is a town celebration after, hopefully we’ll end up hanging out for it a bit, I’d like to have some fun after my labors. Maybe we should camp for two nights and plan on partying it up at the town celebration!! I have yet to really do that after a marathon….