I Run Like A Girl

Very excited to share with you all my big race this fall season:

The California International Marathon on December 3!!

I’ll also be doing 1-2 smaller races leading up to it, likely the Tiburon Half Marathon and/or Coyote Ridge Trail Half Marathon. Will decide closer to the dates 🙂

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve been marinating the past few weeks on whether to do this marathon in December or an earlier one in October, since there were some nice and scenic options in Lake Tahoe, Napa, Portland, etc. I was hoping I could go off of my momentum from the SF half marathon a few weeks ago and get myself ready in time, but I ended up using the past few weeks to catch my breath and see friends, travel for work, and run but not seriously train. Week by week, my gut started to tell me that I wasn’t going to be ready in time for October…but I still kept it on the back burner.

For some reason it hit me for last week in Chicago…even if I could be ready in time, I didn’t want to be. What I meant was, why was I in such a rush to be marathon-ready in less than 8 weeks? The best part of each marathon (in my opinion) is the training cycle: seeing progression week by week, Saturday long runs when I get to explore the city, hours of listening to new music and podcasts…I love it all so much, and I want to soak in each and every mile this time once again!

Plus, (and this is me being an uber planner), I’m not sure if I’ll have the capacity to do a Spring marathon next year with a pretty tough actuarial exam coming up, so in a way this is my “last hurrah” before taking a hiatus from running for a bit. (I told this to a coworker and she thought I was crazy…#runnerproblems) 😉

Also, I’ve heard GREAT things about this marathon – it’s kind of the NYC marathon of California: huge fall race, great organization, lots of spectators, wonderful course all throughout Sacramento…not a bad first west coast marathon 🙂

Lastly, I’d LOVE to go for a PR this time. My first marathon was 2.5 years ago and also my fastest yet, and I refuse to think that I peaked in college. It’s scary to set this goal because I look back on my last few marathons, and even though they weren’t PRs, they were still very solid efforts and huge accomplishments in my eyes! But I believe the most rewarding moments are the ones you never dreamed you could accomplish. I’m definitely going to take advantage of having more time on my hands this fall to earn this PR, fingers crossed.

From my first marathon:

I am BEYOND excited to start training for this! Each marathon has shaped my life in a different way, and I know this will be no different.