Milwaukee Running Festival Marathon

This past Sunday I was supposed to run a marathon. I didn't.

After my mom passed away in August, I wasn't sure what I would do about my upcoming marathon. On one hand I thought I might enjoy training for it, and give my brain a break from all the emotions and grief. On the other hand, I thought the stress of marathon training on top of the stress of my grief might kill me. I looked up the transfer policy and realized I had to the end of October to make a decision. Phew.

After marinating on it for a few weeks, I ultimately decided not to run the race. I knew I could do it. Complete the race. Likely in a 5+ hour time. But that wasn't my intention when I signed up for the race. When I signed up, I was falling back into l-o-v-e love with running, my mom's health was looking up, and I was ready to put in the work to run a decent marathon time, 4:20s-4:30s. I did NOT want to slog through another 5 hour marathon that left me hating running and marathons in general.

And so it was decided. No marathon in 2016. Meaning my last one was over two years ago. If i sign up before the end of the year, I can get my deferred entry to Milwaukee for $10. I'm still not sure if I want to run a fall marathon next year; Kyle kindly suggested that maybe I don't even do marathons anymore. To which I replied, "Yeah if I could just run ONE GOOD ONE, I could retire....."

26.2 TBD.

Milwaukee Marathon Race Plan

This spring I had a tiny moment of crazy in which I decided I was enjoying running enough that maybe I should run a fall marathon. Now if you were in my brain during the last marathon I did, you may recall that "never under any circumstances should I ever do this, ever again, unless I'm crazy fast, because this 5 hour marathon business suckkkkkks."

I was bopping around on marathon guide searching for midwest marathons in October and November, thinking that if maybe I found one late enough, I could be convinced to do it. I considered the Mankato Marathon, as I typically do, and it was a large front runner until I stumbled on to the Lakefront Marathon in Milwaukee in October. I quickly realized I could probably have a fun weekend with Renee and my other favorite Wisconsin chicks, when I discovered that there's a marathon in Milwaukee in NOVEMBER.  Yes yes yes, where do I sign.

So this November 6th, I'll be running my 8th marathon in Milwaukee and then eating cheese curds and drinking delicious local beers post race while watching the Packers play with my favorite cheeseheads. BEST RACE WEEKEND EVER, right??

I'm planning a non-traditional race plan for the marathon to see how my body holds up. I'm running the Sioux Falls half in September, so I'm working to have decent base mileage with a weekly speed session. Once the half is done, I'll have a short training cycle for Milwaukee. I did a similar plan for the Philadelphia Marathon in 2011, and it was one of my best marathons. I'm planning to get in two 16s, an 18, and a 20 before I taper.

Fingers crossed I can get to the starting line healthy and ready to go!