While the race season is right around the corner for most of us (my first 5k is less than 2 weeks away) Race registration season is already in full swing.
What are your target races for the year? Are you already registered? Waiting for registration to open? In the lottery?
I'm already registered for the Wild Half in Wildwood, NJ May 18th.
Will be registering for the Philadelphia Marathon (my first full!) when registration opens April 1st, and most likely the Rock 'n Roll Philly half as part of my build up.
I signed up for the Wine and Dine Half at Walt Disney World (Early November), but I'm still shopping around for a marathon to run this year. Oh, and there's a 5K in our neighborhood that I will probably do, but I think I can sign up for that one the day of, if I have to.
I would love to do Philly some day.
I'm planning to do a marathon a month this year. Two months in and so far, so good. I did the Carlsbad Marathon in January, and the Majestic Marathon in Huntington Beach a few weeks ago.
My big race this year is the Bataan Death March Marathon in the Heavy category, March 23. Heavy category means doing the marathon with a 35 pound pack. I've done a few shorter training runs with pack, but I'm thinking I will probably end up just walking this.
My marathon in April will most likely be the Blast the Beach in Long Beach, my home town, April 6. Then I will do the century ride at the ADA Ship to Shore Tour de Cure in Long Beach on April 27.
I'm not registered for these events yet, but I intend to:
5/4/14 OC Marathon
9/7/14 Ventura Marathon
10/12/14 Long Beach Marathon
Then I'll have to find marathons to fill in the other months.
Oh, and I'm running the Seal Beach 10K, April 5.
Wow that's quite the schedule! I've done the Rock 'n Roll half in Philly twice and while I don't particularly care for the whole Rock 'n Roll race thing I like the race, the course is fantastic, takes in some of the historic parts of the city before looping up along the river through Fairmount Park. It covers much of the same terrain as the Marathon with the exception of the hillier areas around the zoo. Though if you could only ever make it to Philly for 1 race I'd probably recommend the Broad Street Run 10 miler for a unique and different challenge. It starts on one end of Broad street at the northern edge of the city limits and finishes at the other end of Broad Street on the other side of the city.
The only race I'm signed up for is Broad Street. I'm thinking about doing the ODDyssey half again in June, and I'll run the Philly Full again if I don't get into JFK.
Jerry - You've always got a free place to stay if you want to come run here!
Good thread! I was thinking about going back to Chicago but lost interest w/ the lottery. Last year we had the inaugural marathon in the suburb where I live (http://naperville26.com/) that was a nice race although it was quite a bit hillier than people expected. There's two rivers (really the east and west branch of the Dupage...) and bigger hills than you'll find in mot of Illinois and certainly Chicago. I grew up here, was dx'ed here, moved back here a couple of years ago and have trained for 2x marathons w/ the store which was voted #1 store in the country and it just works. I'd like to go for another full but have had persistent problems with cramps running > 10 miles, not always but it hits and takes time to get over and all that. I think I'm going to sign up for the full and see how it goes. I tried hacking 30 sec off my pace over the winter and found it a lot more relaxing. I know people from the 9:30/10:00 and now the 10:30 groups and 10:30 I did a couple of months of 10 milers and had no problems at all, a different vibe from the summer, when I trained for the 1/2 at like 8:20-8:40 and, once again, had cramps get me at the end of the 1/2. Grrr.
I've also taken about 70 days off running to try P90X3 and am finding the break weird. I miss the greenspace but winter has sucked in Chicago so running would have been very dicey and I'm glad to have something else to do that I can recycle into xtraining. I was thinking that I was getting too old to run quicker as I'd struggled with times (I live by the river with the hills so it's hard to say from training runs, LOL...) but *finally* broke the 23 minute barrier with a 22:59 5K on Thanksgiving. I hadn't run between 1110 when I did the 1/2 but just did a bunch of T25 workouts, legs/upper/abs and really blazed the 5K which made me think good xtraining is a good thing? We'll see how things work out...
I've got a 5K for the Charles Tillman Cornerstone Foundation (http://charlestillman.org/) in Chicago next weekend and am also contemplating the Tour de Cure which is also super convenient in June. 100 miles with no traffic sounds appealing!
That's a fantastic 5K time on cross-training! I'm sure you didn't lose all of your half marathon training in that time, but still...
I know I need to do more than just run. I've done some bike rides, getting ready for TdC, but I need to work the rest of the body.
X3 is "only" 30 minutes but you do stuff like one workout that goes back and forth between pushups and pullups for 1/2 hour. It will smoke your arms. Some of the other ones are interesting, cardio stuff with weights, like squats, lunges, balances on one leg, I do like 8-10 lbs but sometimes will back off to 5 and chill out to keep the form going. It's an interesting workout.
I sort of like Shaun T more with T25, which are only 25 minutes, but his attitude is really cool and engaging, while he goes "you're going to hate me but [insert exercise]" and the workouts are a little bit more cardio oriented I think. There's all cardio ones, But they're in place, like jumping up and down. I did that while I trained for the 1/2 over the summer and it was fun. I think it made me stronger as I had one smoking 12 miler (1:45...) that made me think I could do low 1:5X in the 1/2 but I got caught by cramps again, still getting 2:01. I ran about 3 days/ week evenings and went in the basement in the AM.
There's probably stuff all over the place that's similar but I like having a planned series, somebody yelling at you "do this, do that...", etc. articularly if you do the Bataan thing, carrying weights, I can't help but think it would be good. I'm not a dealer but they aren't hard to find. Very good workouts. They have quite a bit of yoga too. There are some more concentrated ab ones in T25. Some abs in X3 but not as much.
I’ve registered for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philly Half – my first! – and am considering the Jersey Shore Half as well. I can’t wait until it warms up enough to run outside again.
I have signed up for Darlington Marathon in September, my first full
Registered for the OC Marathon 5/4/14.
I am not going to get a marathon a month in this year. But I did do a century ride, the Ship to Shore Tour de Cure, in April, so that's something.
And I can still get 12 done this year by doing two in another month.