Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Over Before it Began: Marathon Bummer

Despite my current health issues, I was still planning to run the Atlanta Marathon I'd registered for at the end of October. Then I received a notice from the Atlanta Track Club that, to focus on the 10-miler that happens in conjunction with it, they were cancelling the marathon.

I'm so bummed! The Atlanta Track club did offer a couple of options to those of us already signed up, but none of them work for me. I put a lot of research into what race I wanted to run. Here's my thought process--if I'm going to run 26.2 miles, it's going to have to be a race I'm REALLY motivated to run. It's no secret that I adore my city and I was really looking forward to going through it on foot.

I think the universe might be giving me a sign (okay, smacking me over the head with a sign) to give it another year before I tackle the full. Instead, I'm going to focus on some shorter distances and get my strength back so when I do decide to do a full, I can hit the ground running (pun entirely intended).

Here is what the rest of my year looks like, race wise:

June, July & August: Get back on my feet and train for the Peachtree Road Race, a 10k on July 4th. Other than that, I don't have any races planned. The temperature is already creeping up into the high 80's here, so while I'm sure there will be some shorter races that pop up, the Peachtree is the big race for the summer.
September: It will still be warm here, but there will be more race options. Right now I'm looking forward to the Back to Football 5k that wraps up in The Dome, where the Atlanta Falcons play.
October: The Superheroes vs. Villians 5k and the AthHalf in Athens happen back to back this year, and if I'm back to my old running self, I'll follow them up with the Atlanta Track Club 10-miler instead of my marathon.
November: My favorite holiday run, Lanier Under the Lights, and Calloway Garden's Twilight 10k both offer courses through the holiday lights. Fun!
December: The Jeff Galloway 13.1 is the only race on my only December race on my radar right now. I had a bunch planned last December and it was too much, because the holidays are always much busier than I plan on!

It's not quite the year I had envisioned in January, but hopefully I'll be even stronger by the end of the year.

A penny for your thoughts: has your 2014 plan changed now that we're halfway through?

2 comments:

  1. My 2014 plan changed right as we rang in the new year. I think you will figure it out though!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Come run some races in Colorado! Or let's find a beach race!

    ReplyDelete