MARATHON BLUES

I woke up yesterday morning ALONE. David wasn't around to sip coffee, chat, or race off to church with me. I had a lot of time to myself to reflect on the day... It was a sunny day, just a few puffy white clouds in the sky. It was a little chilly, 53 degrees around 8am. It was the perfect day to run a marathon, and I was insanely jealous of the 30,000 people gathering near Arlington National Cemetery to run the Marine Corps Marathon.



David and I have run the Marine Corps Marathon the past two years. We (READ: I) decided not to run it this year because I wanted to run a new course in a different city. The plan was to run the NYC Marathon (which is this coming Sunday), but I failed to get a spot through the lottery. Angry that I didn't get into NYC, I didn't even think about what it would be like to not run a marathon this fall...

Now that I've experienced not running a marathon, I'm a little bummed out. Not only that, but I'm running really well these days. Two weekends ago I ran a five-miler in 43 minutes (a personal best). I think I'm just about ready to run a sub-50 minute 10K. It would have been wonderful to run a marathon while in this type of shape! I guess I will have to take my no-marathon-running blues and use it to motivate me...

There's talk among two different groups of my friends about possibly training for a triathlon in the spring, which would be great. I really enjoyed the last one that I did. And there's also talk of a Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot or running another local 10K in the coming weeks. In May I'll put my name into the lottery once again for the NYC marathon. If I get denied this year, I'll definitely sign up for the 2008 Marine Corps Marathon AND will be guaranteed entry into the 2009 NYC race (because they let you in if you try three times and are denied).

Here's to a new year (beginning today) of fast running, lots of fun outdoors, no injuries, and no regrets...