Before the Fall

I just posted my May running recap and while I was writing that post, I wondered what my June and July would bring. I had a friend at church ask me if I was running any summer races. My reply was that I did not have anything planned other than a 5k in August even though there are quite a few races around here during those months.

Historically, I don’t run very much in June and July. First, there is the heat. It usually takes me all of June to acclimate to heat, so that running in July, August and first part of September is manageable. Second, June and July is my rest period in between the Spring Racing and Fall Racing seasons. Expo 10k is the Farewell to Spring racing while the Scholar’s Run 5k (the one on August 18th) is the Hello to Fall Racing (fall training technically starts on August 1st).

Now, just because I don’t log much running during June and July doesn’t mean that there’s not running stuff happening. It does have LOTS of planning and this year, late July is going to be crucial. My fall marathon of choice is the Flying Monkey Marathon on November 18th. My “alternate” marathon is the Chickamauga Marathon on November 10th. However, it is not that simple…

The Flying Monkey Marathon is advertised as a marathon for fools. In fact, it is so foolish that training for the marathon is futile. Now, as someone who run the Flying Monkey marathon with little training, I agree. Flying Monkey is a marathon where you are going to get a PR if it happens to be your first marathon, and if it is your first marathon, that’s pretty foolish. However, the Flying Monkey marathon is super cool and sets the bar high to other marathons on how marathons should be organized and how to treat the runner. It’s so popular that it sells out fast. Real fast. Because of this, there is going to be some sort of lottery. What this tells me is that there is a chance I might not be chosen, therefore, I need a Plan B… so say hello to Chickamauga Marathon.

Chickamauga Marathon just happens to be the course of my current marathon PR time. It also does a great job of treating the runner right, it’s just not as sassy as Flying Monkey. A bonus for Chickamauga is that it’s less than 2 hours away, an easy day trip. Another bonus is that “I Run For My Life” Susan has Chickamauga on her short list. Except that if I am going to run Chickamauga, it’s going to be for business (PR time) not for a social outing.

These two race’s registration will collide together at the end of July. Flying Monkey is supposed to have their lottery toward the end of July or on the traditional day of Flying Monkey registration of August 1st. Chickamauga is having “early bird” registration through July 31st. It might be that I won’t to know if I am running Flying Monkey before Chickamauga goes up in price. If this is the case then I would need to register for Chickamauga and then see if I get into the Flying Monkey Marathon.

Worst case scenario, ‘I don’t get into Flying Monkey’, would be the easier of the two scenario as I would only have one fall marathon. Best case scenario, ‘I get into Flying Monkey’, would be the tougher because I would have 2 marathons within 8 days of each other. But for those of you who have been around, might remember that I ran a similar set up back in 2008, with Rutledge Marathon and Flying Monkey Marathon.

Either way, my Fall Marathon training will start on August 1st regardless of the number of marathons I will be running.

 

 

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