Missed One & Mankato

I was double checking my plan for this year and realized that I had missed a marathon, I forgot all about it as last year was the first year. The race I missed is the St. Paul Urban Trail Marathon.

I clicked on the link and they haven't updated the registration page with this years race but since they added the date for 2014, it look like I have one more race to add. So that would mean 12 Minnesota outdoor marathons this year. I am little concerned though by the date as that might be the weekend we take our daughter back to school. Well, it's on my radar now, we will just have to wait and see if everything works out.

And for those thinking about running Mankato this fall (Oct. 19th), now is the time to sign up to save a few dollars as between now and the end of the month the marathon is $48, a 40% discount. After this signup period ends, the price keeps increasing until it hits the max of $85. So I will be signing up this week.

Oh, I should add some info for a couple of future posts, first, new shoes but these are road shoes (Pearl Izumi EM road H3's and New Balance 870v3), I have to admit it was weird to be looking at road shoes, somehow it just didn't feel right, now I just would like to see the snow melt off as the sloppy paths are a nuisance. And the other post will be a 2013 year in review summary which I am overdue to get out.

So stay tuned.

2014 Goals Confirmed

I haven't done a very good job of posting to my blog, I think it reflects that after the injuries a few years back I got off track and basically lost my motivation. I had met my goals up to a point and couldn't get my motivation up to push through the injuries to finish up my ultra goals. Now I think that had as much to do with work and other things but the bottom line is I wasn't putting in the time. It also had a lot to do with the concept of running 100 miles is still hard for me to comprehend, so this year I decided on a different approach. Not to resume my 50 state quest which may need to extend beyond age 60 but a much simpler goal.

So to help me out this year I set a conceptual easy goal, run all of the outdoor marathons in Minnesota. The easy part is getting done now, I have signed up for the first 5 (of 11) marathons. I signed up on 12/31 in order to save a few dollars but went ahead and signed up for Grandmas and Twin Cities. Grandma's price goes up at the end of January but by signing up in December we had the chance to win a free hotel for this year's race. Well no notification thus far so it probably isn't going to happen. For Twin Cities, I wanted to do the Ultra Loony Challenge so decided to ahead and sign up in case it fills up quickly (it's limited to the first 500), so I went ahead and signed up for that. For those not familiar with the Loony Challenge, it just means I am going to run the 5k and 10k the day before the marathon, kind of a Minnesota version of the Goofy for Disney.

So as of today, I have signed up for the following events:

Date	Event
04/26/14	Brainerd Jaycees Run for the Lakes
05/10/14	Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon
05/25/14	Med-City Marathon
06/21/14	Grandmas Marathon
10/05/14	Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon

I will probably sign up for the Minneapolis Marathon next followed by Mankato when registration opens on January 20th, Moose Mountain after registration opens on March 15th, then Walker before April 1st, Bemidji before May 1st and whenever Eugene Curnow opens I will sign up for it.

Beyond the 11 marathons I am sure we will do the annual Gobble Gait run on Thanksgiving and I am faily sure I will do something at Surf the Murph and maybe run the 25k or volunteer again at Afton. I may not get in a new state this year but that's ok as I still have a lot of fun races to do.

Since the commitment to enter races is underway, it's time for my commitment to training to begin as well. I have a lot of runs and a few pounds to lose before the end of April gets here. The good news is regardless of my outside distractions I am looking forward to the training for the first time in years.

Should be a fun year.