Congratulations! You’re In!

This was the title at the top of the email confirmation for the Marine Corps Marathon!

YES! I made it!

Knowing this race sells out fast, I had contemplated it and talked it over with my husband days ago. We set a reminder for myself and then…. I promptly forgot.

In January I started searching for the perfect marathon for this year. My preference was actually to run a spring marathon but I couldn’t find one I particularly wanted to run, amazingly.

Throughout my career I traveled quite a lot and now I really like being home. So, as much as I don’t mind traveling to Idaho or Arizona, for example, I don’t feel a need to travel that far just to run a race. Much better to race in a city close to home or close to family……except for the Marine Corps Marathon.

My husband was in the Marine Corps and during every race I wear his jump wings for good luck. Once I forgot them and he tore off a piece of paper we managed to find in the car, drew the wings on the paper and pinned it on my shirt with a safety-pin.

Of course, there was a steady rain for most of the race and I worried my “wings” would disintegrate. If the rain wasn’t enough, the big commercial grade sprinklers were running in an office park we passed drenching the road, and all of us runners.

I did well in that race though and the sun came out just in time for the award ceremony and my first overall award.

Superstitions among athletes are another topic entirely that I’ve toyed with writing about but all superstition aside, I knew I must run the Marine Corps Marathon at some point in my life.

It is such a patriotic race, and I feel even more patriotic after living abroad for a while, so I’ve been anxious every year to put this marathon on my list. That year has eluded me for one reason or another….until now.

The date may have been in the reminder of my iPad but that iPad was sitting on the kitchen counter and completely out of my mind when I left home for a run. After the run, I decided I had time for one quick errand on the way home and it was then that it hit me. But it was 12:20 already and I had a 10 minute drive home. I raced.

I had to work at it for 1-1/2 hours. Three times I got to the payment page only to get knocked off due to “technical issues”.

The race sold out by 2:30 and I got my confirmation at 2pm. I’m guessing if the system could have processed all of us at once, the race would have sold out in 15 minutes!

Now that I have a date on October 27th, all those silly worries begin. Will I train properly, what if “life” happens and I can’t make the trip, what if I get injured, what if….

But. I love having a marathon on my calendar. It gives a bit more purpose to your days, intensity to your training, spunk in your step. Well, you know what I mean. Yippee!