Friday Fun

I registered for the Illinois Half Marathon today!  I'm so excited about this race, Courtney will be running the full - her first - and Jess from Jess Runs will be there to pace her.

While I was trying to distract myself from some craziness going on in my life this week, I gave a lot of thought to my race schedule for this year and what my goals are for next year.

Last month I toyed with the idea of completing my first marathon this year - there is a marathon very near me the weekend of my birthday...my 26th birthday, no less.  This got me pretty excited because if there's a year to run a full on your birthday, I'd say 26 is it.  That said, at this time, I don't know that I would be able to prepare myself both physically and mentally for a marathon by September.  I have a lot of races this year I want to complete and I've decided right now those races (and the people I'll get to run them with) are more important to my development as a runner and achieving the goals I have than taking the step of training for a full.

I'll be updating my race schedule this evening, deciding which races are staying and which are going.

This year my two major goals are to become a Half Fanatics member and to complete the Kansas City Half Marathon in under 3 hours.

I'm hoping 2012 is going to be my marathon year.  I want to do it, I want to do it before I turn 30 and well, time is running out!

Kansas City and Ragnar are my two really big (important) races for the year.  What races are you focusing on the most this year?  What made you decide you were ready for a marathon?