Furthering My Edumacation

It's going to be a fun semester! And I'm honestly not sure if I mean that in a sarcastic way or not yet! There's just so much going on and some of the classes I'm taking are ones that I never would have guessed existed so I have no idea if I'm going to enjoy them or not yet.

My schedule for this semester is Functional Kinesiology (okay, I will love this class!), Business Aspects of Fitness, Sport Marketing, and Legal Aspects of Sport. I already have a business degree so most of the marketing and legal-ese is nothing new but I never really enjoyed it either. I just hope relating it to something I do love (fitness!) will help make it easier and more fun.

Either way, I have a lot on my plate this fall! Besides school, I have 6 weeks until the Baltimore Marathon! EEK! I've recovered really well from the Baker 50 Miler and I'm going to do some short races for fun this weekend. Then next week it is back to work on marathon training! It's even more important because....

I signed up for marathon #5 in November! I'll be running the Marshall University Marathon on November 11. I'm debating on finding one to squeeze in between Baltimore and Marshall too. However, I'll wait and see how Baltimore goes first I think!

Then there's a few shorter races that I'm really excited about. The first, of course, is the Pretty Muddy which you can read all about in yesterday's post. The second one that I'm dreaming of is the Runner's World half marathon in Bethlehem, PA on October 21. I'm a huge fan of RW magazine and frequent the Runner's World Online forums so this seems like a great way to do something with the staff get my picture in there!

This weekend my husband and I are doing the For The Love Of Lindsey 5k which we did last year too. Then on Labor Day we'll be doing the Kellersburg Labor Day 5k run. I feel like I've barely raced this year, which is true since I did 33 races last year compared to only 16 so far this year. I'm really looking forward to just doing some races for fun this weekend. I've been so focused on performance and goal races that I have skipped a lot of the smaller local 5k's that we usually support. I'm excited to remedy that over the long holiday!

Have any recommendations for another marathon or ultra that I can squeeze in? How many races is too many? What are your Labor Day plans?

For The Love Of Lindsey

Shane and I ran this 5k today. We did it last year too (but apparently I never wrote a recap?). I wasn't too keen on doing it again but Shane thought they would have improved the issues since last year. I wasn't so sure. I also didn't get much sleep. Gem was up and down until 10:30 last night and then at 11:30 Ash started waking up every hour. I ended up sleeping on the couch next to her from 2:30 until 6:30. Needless to say getting up and running a race wasn't on my wish list this morning.

Last year this race had about 200 runners and it was HOT. We took Gem with us and it turned out to be a nightmare. The youngest age group was 0-14 so there was no way she could get an award. The race started late, ran on busy roads and the sun baked everyone. It was so bad that Gem begged a popsicle off some spectators watching from their yard! If I remember correctly Shane got an age group award but neither Gem nor I had a chance.

Sporting my (cotton) shirt post-race.

This year the race had about the same number of people and was only a little cooler with temps in the mid-80's. Once again it started late and cars were still travelling the roads. It's a winding course that takes you through a lot of tight turns and side roads before depositing you back on the main road. The last mile or so is on the main road next to railroad tracks and is a perfect straight away. It tends to burn runners out because they think they're close to the finish line but they aren't even close. I knew better than to push on that section this year.

I finished in 27:40-something (official results aren't up yet) and Shane ran a 22:xx. I was pretty happy with that considering it's only been a week since the Baker and I didn't push myself at all. We got our water and wandered over to the door prize winner sign. We didn't win anything so we checked for result postings. The first 25 or so finishers were up. Shane was 13th overall but still didn't get an age group award because they changed the awards from 5 year spans to 10 years. Why races do this I will never understand. The more runners who get a medal at your race the more happy participants you'll have. That will get you more runners the next year and the cycle continues. Don't be cheap on medals darn it! (Okay, rant over!) I wasn't listed yet but I searched for women in my age group. There were already three so I told Shane we should just go.

All in all, this race is for a great cause which is usually enough to get me to run. But the open-to-cars course, crazy turns, bad heat for the past two years, and now 10 year age groups means I probably won't be back. There's just too many other options available that are actually fun and scenic.

What makes a great race for you? Do you usually give a 'bad' race a second chance?