And so it begins ...

After weeks of conversations and racking our brains, my super great running friends and I have chosen our fall marathon. We thought about running the Quad Cities Marathon, the inaugural Savannah Rock N Roll Marathon, the Des Moines Marathon and the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. All would be great races, and all would add to my goal of someday — and when I say someday, I mean probably when I'm in my 70s — running a marathon in all 50 states. But that list will continue to dwindle. After October 16, I will be able to scratch off Michigan. On that date, we will hit the streets of Grand Rapids at the 2011 Metro Health Grand Rapids Marathon.

 

I always feel a little nervous when registering for a marathon. With three under my belt, that still hasn't changed. But yesterday, just before registering, I interviewed a couple local ultra marathon runners for a story I'm writing for work. I go into this interview thinking, "These guys are crazy!" During the interview, they started trying to convince me to do an ultra. At which point, I thought "These guys are carzy!" They said their training really isn't much different that that of a marathon runner. They each have full-time jobs, wives and kids and said they honestly don't have the time to log hundreds of miles each week. A key part of preparing for 50 or 100 mile ultras, they added, is mental. I had almost considered taking them up on their challenge, until mentality came into play. I'm still having issues wrapping my head around the mental challenge associated with marathon running, I'm not sure I could stretch my mind even further and tackle an ultra (even a 30-mile ultra sounds terrifying right now).

I came home from the coffee shop where I interviewed the guys, grabbed my credit card and computer, and sat down to make marathon #4 official. Just as I was about to click "Register" there was a ridiculously loud clap of thunder and my power went out. My laptop —with its dead battery and therefore dependent upon that power — turned off as well. I thought this might be a sign. But if it was, I wasn't listening! As soon as the power came back on I completed my registration. Take that, crazy loud thunder and momentary power outage!

So, I am now preparing to run 26.2 miles in precisely 86 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes and 52 seconds (according to the countdown on the marathon's website). Hopefully this chick is there with her encouraging words of wisdom, which I would assume ring true for runners of all distances:

I'll try and keep that in mind during my training runs as well! Training runs, which I should probably step up a little now that Grand Rapids is official. I'm very excited for Michigan to join Arizona, Illinois and Tennessee, raising my 50 in 50 total to four! Watch out 50 in 50 ... I'll get there someday! And, who knows, I may even run an ultra someday. But for now, I'll just have to focus on Grand Rapids ... and not shitting myself.