Saturday is the Rocket City Marathon. It will be my 3rd time running this titled race, but it’s an inaugural course this year and everyone is SUPER excited.
Everyone…but me.
The more I run trails every winter, the more I hate road runs. I think I’m doing it to myself by constantly talking about how much I hate running on the road, but either way, I am not looking forward to 26.2 miles of road running.
I’ve intentionally not done ANY of the training/trail preview runs on the course so that – hopefully – the element of surprise will give me some sort of joy throughout those miles.
At one point I thought about trying to PR, which would at least give me something to focus on, but my training has not been adequate enough for that and I have another 50K 18 days away from this marathon so I don’t want to kill myself for one and sacrifice the other. Especially since neither of them are my “goal race” for the season. My “goal race” is still the Moutain Mist 50K which I’ve wanted to do for a few years but didn’t feel confident I could make the time cutoffs until this year. THAT is the race I’m focusing on every time I walk out the door, why kill myself on any other race?
So. No PR to keep me distracted.
I’ve come up with a Race Day Plan. I’m going to try to take at least one photo per mile of the race. I’m going to do selfies in front of some of the “landmarks” they’ve routed us around on the city, I want to take selfies with spectators and volunteers, and I want to take pictures at mile markers. Basically, I want to run this race as goofily as possible in hopes to stay smiling the whole day and not get too irritated by the fact that the surface under my feet is not dirt. My PR for a marathon is 4:38, and that wasn’t really a happy pace. So…I’ll slow it down a bit and take a bunch of photos and hope to still finish under 5:15. That’s my goal.
Feel free to follow me on Instagram as that’s the method I can use to post pictures to all of my accounts at once. I’ll pick the highlights to put on my race report!
Here’s to 26.2 miles of goofy selfies!
That sounds like a FABULOUS idea! Good luck Saturday and have TONS O’FUN!!!
Stop for a picture with me at the MSU Cheer station at the Space Center! I’ll even let you hole my hubby’s cherished cowbell! ????
Stop for a picture with me at the MSU Cheer station at the Space Center! I’ll even let you hole my hubby’s cherished cowbell! ????
The marathon is coming through my neighborhood for the 1st time, so my family is going to be out cheering. Stop & take a selfie with me!! We will be on Stevens between miles 8 & 9.
I’ll be looking for you. Will you remember what I look like or do we need a code word?
Of course I’ll remember you 🙂 I’m starting with the 4:55 pace group but I’m not sue how behind I’ll get with all of the photo taking!!! I’ll def stop for a selfie!!!!! WOOT!