I've realized, as I've been thinking about it, that I have a rather ambitious year ahead of me if I carry out my race schedule as planned (or daydreamt, or fantasized, more appropriately). Time to put it into writing.
I'm doing this on my cell while lying in bed. I have to be at the airport in 4 hours for an early flight, so I may not have all the dates right.
24 January: Manhattan half
14 February: Fight for Air stair climb
28 February: Hyannis half
21 March: NYC half? (have entered lottery; not counting on it)
9 May: Bear Mountain half
20 June: Mt. Washington road race
August: Pikes Peak? (depends if I qualify in Jan/Feb or not*)
17 October: Mt. Lemmon marathon
8 November: NYC marathon
15 November: Richmond half... or full?
*to qualify, you must have run a 2:30 half or a 5:30 marathon. Both I've easily done in the past (in fact, I'm not sure I've ever run a half slower than 2:30! But, you must have done this in the past 5 years. Thus the uncertainty.
22 November: Flying Monkey Marathon
MY QUEST TO QUALIFY NOT JUST FOR THE OLYMPIC TRIALS BUT FOR THE 2016 OLYMPICS IN THE MARATHON (to do this I will need to halve my marathon time)
On I went, out of the wood, passing the man leading without knowing I was going to do so. Flip-flap, flip-flap, jog-trot, jog-trot, curnchslap-crunchslap, across the middle of a broad field again, rhythmically running in my greyhound effortless fashion, knowing I had won the race though it wasn't half over, won it if I wanted it, could go on for ten or fifteen or twenty miles if I had to and drop dead at the finish of it, which would be the same, in the end, as living an honest life like the governor wanted me to. -Alan Sillitoe, "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"
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