What's Next? + Happy Birthday Me

Going in to the Vegas Marathon, I had some possible races on the horizon for the spring.  I knew I wanted to run the Fargo Marathon in mid-May and that it would be my A Goal race for the season.  I also knew I wanted to run a half marathon PR during training (to avenge my craptastic half in September).

I had originally planned on doing the Earth Day HM in St. Cloud MN, but when a quick mapquest revealed that it was over 4 hours away I thought better of it.  Even if that means that I won't get to meet Marshall Eriksen's family and potentially get one of his 6'9" brothers to fall madly in love with me.  Drat!  In addition the course description of hills (said in hushed tones with accompanying shudders and chills), didn't really "have me at hello" if you know what I mean.

Magically, I found a small half marathon race 25 minutes from my parents, and in the same city as my BFFF Sheana.  Since the course will be along the river, there is a very good chance for hills (shudders) as well, at least I'll only have to drive an hour to experience them, and will get to do them with my fam and bestie running around town cheering for me.  River Rat Half Marathon, you are on my LIST!  (Uh yeah.... gross name right?)

I have been toying with the idea of running the LA Marathon in March as well.  Megan is running it, and one of my college friends who is out in San Diego is doing it as her first and wanted me to accompany her.  After Vegas, I decided LA was a no go.  And then I decided I would do it with my friend as a training run for Fargo.  And then I decided that I would race it as redemption for Vegas.  And then I actually thought about it (as if I hadn't thought about it enough....clearly) and realized that the smart decision was to scratch LA, take the next 8 weeks easy-ish, slowing building up my mileage and strengthening my hips and knees, and destroying my training for Fargo starting in mid-February.

Please tell me the rest of you runners all have this obsessive of a mind......right?

So that lets you know what's on my agenda for the next six months:

4/23/10 River Rat Half Marathon

5/21/10 Fargo Marathon

For a super fun day, I also plan to take on the Irishman Challenge (our city's version of the Goofy Challenge, apparently).  Since I'm a girl of green (and am more than a wee bit o' Irish) I take my St. Patty's Day celebrations very seriously.  They have a 5 mile, 5k, and 1 mile race.  I've done the 5 mile once, and the 5k twice.  By participating in all 3 you get a sweet Irishman Award.  YES PLEASE.  I'm also hoping I can wrangle Miss Alyssa in to attending because I just plain miss her face. :D

In keeping with the birthday/26.2 tradition (yes it's now a tradition because it's happened twice) I signed up for Fargo as my birthday gift to myself yesterday.  Marathon #3 here I come!

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I had a first the other day.  My mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas/birthday (clearly she doesn't read my blog) and I sent her a link to some new shoes I've been coveting.  Uh...hello lovers.....  The link was from the exact google shopping search to make the shopping easy peasy.  I explained to her that it should show all the online options so she could select the cheapest option available.

MamaBear:  So I just click on the shoe, make sure it says size 8 and give them my credit card number....and then they just send the shoes to me????
Jerbear:  Uh yeah.... what did you expect to do?

(Sidenote:  I actual refer to my parents as MamaBear and PapaBear in my head.... so very random.  Also, my friends used to make fun of me in high school because I referred to my mom as "Maaaaaw."  Pretty sure I still do that. :p)

Hi Mom, welcome to almost 2011...this is online shopping.  Given the fact that I only shop online I was pretty perplexed that there was someone left on the earth who wasn't familiar with the idea.  Apparently this apple fell miles and miles away from the tree.   Although it shouldn't surprise me too much, my parents still don't have a cell phone and got a DVD player (for the first time) 2 years ago and that was only because the local gas station that has movie rentals (yes I'm from the tiniest town ever) switched over from VHS to DVD and they had no choice. :p

I ran my first run as a 27 year old in them (along with a super cute almost all green outfit) yesterday and it was love.  I forgot my knee strap and had almost zero knee pain running in them.  Love love love!