I'M IN!

Marine Corp Marathon course map. Click to embiggen.

Alright, I finally have a target marathon this fall! After a couple of failed attempts to get into Chicago and New York, I have secured a spot in the 2018 Marine Corp Marathon (MCM)! So late this October I'll be packing my bags and flying to Washington DC to make my marathon comeback - three years in the making. I'm actually pretty excited! I feel comfortable enough with my progress that running a marathon definitely seems like an attainable goal at this point.

As I've mentioned, the MCM has implemented a lottery system. It used to be the first 30,000 to sign up got in, but after it became so popular and the spots were gone within hours of registration opening, they implemented this lottery system. The odds are fairly good, certainly much better than New York or Chicago. However, I didn't have to enter the lottery. Why? Well, I knew the lottery was open from 3/21 to 3/28. I had checked every few weeks just to assure myself. Well, a few days before the lottery opened I checked to make sure once again. And upon this visit of the website a new option appeared... "rush registration." Apparently the first 11,000 people to sign up the morning of 3/21 would automatically get in!

I guess they snuck this option on the website about a week or so before it opened up. They expected it to sell out within 25 minutes and from what I can tell that's exactly what happened. It opened up at 6am Pacific on 3/21, and if you know me, I'm not a morning person. So what did I do? I enlisted a generous East Coast friend (thanks Jon!) to sign up for me. So I woke up at 8:30am with a spot secured. That was easy! I'm in! No need for a lottery or anything. My friend ran the 17.75k over there a few weeks ago to secure his spot, so I'll actually have a friend at the race to run it with. Wohoo!

Now that the mystery of where is solved, I can start focusing on my training. I probably don't have to start ramping up my training until the beginning of June... that would give me five months to get ready. More than enough time for someone like me who is in half marathon shape. So until that point, I'm just going to keep staying in half shape and try to generally increase my mileage. Instead of 4-5-3-10 weeks, I need to try and establish 5-7-4-13 type weeks. My body is currently used to around 15-20 miles a week (mostly because I've only been going out 3 times a week). So I hope to get out there 4 times a week and gradually move the needle toward the mid twenties in terms of mileage. That will be a good leaping off point into marathon training.

So that's the update! I think I'll really like this race... lots of other runners and lots of sights to be seen along the way. One thing I really need to do is try and adjust my sleep schedule before this race. I cannot go out there with my body used to sleep at 3am Eastern. Really need to dedicate myself to that this time.