Marathon Mania!

Ever since I started marathoning, I've typically either been marathon training or injured at any given point in time.  Therefore, it almost goes without saying that now that I'm not injured, I'm marathon training!

I am this excited about marathons!

I considered several options for marathons in 2019.  Much like real estate is all about location, location, location, marathoning can come down to timing, timing, timing!  There are some really good marathons in January and February (Houston, Arizona Rock 'n' Roll, BMO Mesa-Phoenix), but I didn't have enough time to train for those.  Then there is Boston in April, and my coach thought I should try to get into the elite field, but thinking about investing so much money and logistical inconvenience into trying to run Boston made me nervous coming off an injury (plus U.S. women's marathoning is so on fire right now, I don't really think a 2:47 would have gotten me in).  There really aren't any other obvious choices for fast marathons with thick fields in the spring, so in the end I landed on going back to Grandma's on June 22!  This will give me plenty of time to get back into top shape.  I loved the event and a lot of women OTQ there; really my only hesitation is due to the risk of warm weather, but I think every spring marathon has the risk of crap weather.

But June is an awfully long way away, and although I believe I need the time to get into PR marathon form, I don't particularly want to wait that long to run a marathon, especially since I missed CIM 2018.  I just love running marathons!  The inaugural Chisholm Trail Marathon on March 24 was one that had been on my radar this past fall, but I thought I'd only do it if I got the 2:45 standard at CIM, because I don't think I can PR there -- I just don't see it being a very large event so I would expect to be time trialing it, much like I did for 20 miles of the Prairie Fire Marathon, plus Kansas weather in March is volatile to say the least.  But I am currently in a different situation of not chasing a PR this spring, so I decided to run Chisholm Trail for fun/no time goal, then build from there to Grandma's.  There are 13 weeks between races so it works out pretty nicely to take a week off then do a 12 week build that doesn't start from scratch.  My training will be targeted at Grandma's, but Chisholm Trail will be a fun little checkpoint.

I also want to go back to CIM on December 8, which fits nicely into this plan.

I'm pretty pumped to get back to marathoning!