qualify

Okay, some of you may have suspected this already. Being that I've been running so many races and I already volunteered at one this year as well.

For kicks I'm seeing if I can qualify for the 2010 ING NYC Marathon.

In order to pull this off the nine races since July. This takes a little diligence since most people start their count in the beginning of the year.

When I decided to give this a whirl I counted out all the qualifying races that were left in the year, and either I was going to have to run a half marathon this weekend (Grete's Great Gallop) or a 15K on Dec 19th.

Just in case you didn't know, December is COLD. I don't mind running in some cold, but middle of December getting my ass out to central park in below freezing weather to wait for the gun to go off to start the race and then be all sweaty afterwards outside when you stop...not fun.

So I decided to make the half marathon a goal. It was going to be tight; I had just enough time to train responsibly - only increasing my mileage each week by 10%. So I got started. Ran long runs of four miles, six miles, eight miles....

Then remembered how bored I get during long runs. And that even though I loved the feeling of accomplishment with completing a marathon that I HATE all the training. All those long runs. Ugh.

Thus I stopped training for the half. I've been keeping my runs to six miles max because that is the limit of my interest.

As luck would have it I was misinformed on one little point. Just before the half this weekend there is a shorter race, a 1.7 mile Norway Run. Which I thought wasn't a qualifier. But I went out on a limb and actually asked NYRR...to find out it does count towards my nine races!!

Game. On. After that only four races to go.

Now I'll have to figure out if I actually want to run another marathon....not quite sure on that one yet.