Dreaming of my next marathon

I’m really getting the itch to run another marathon.  My last one, Georgia’s Marathon, was all the way back in March, and it was wholly unsatisfying, as the hills and heat made the race really tough, and it turned out to be my ‘modern day’ worst marathon, at 5:12.  My only worse showings were my first two marathons in 1996 and 1998.  Before I could get myself back into training mode for triathlon season, injuries struck and I was shut down for the summer.  I am now finally pretty healthy and starting to build my training again.

Depressing me is that this weekend is the marathon I had been targeting to run next, in Sioux Falls SD.  Also, fall marathon season is just about upon us, and I truly feel a void not having a fall marathon to train for for the first time since 2006(!)

Picking marathons when you are trying to run all 50 states can be pretty hard.  I’ve already completed 11 states and so don’t want to repeat any of those.  I would love to run another 50 states marathon club reunion marathon, but their first 2 reunion races next year are in states I’ve already completed, Texas and Delaware.  I also need to consider if I want to travel near (love road trips in the car) or far (airplane travel), whether my wife will join me on the trip, and which particular month I want to target.

In terms of timing, I wanted to give myself enough time for training, but also get one done as early as possible next year, so I was looking at the month of March.  When I shared my plans with my wife, she got involved in doing some research as well, and discovered that there will be a new marathon in Asheville, NC, completely run on the Biltmore Estate.  We love driving to Asheville, and I absolutely love the area there, with the cool downtown and Blue Ridge Parkway / Mountains outdoors and scenery.  SOLD!

So, thanks to my wife for the assist, my next marathon will be the Asheville Marathon, on 3/3/13.  So long as I don’t run into any more injury or health issues in the build-up over the next 6 months.