Oh! The Places I Could Go

The heat wave forced me inside most of the weekend so I spent some time cleaning up my pile on the desk. In addition I received a phone call from my bro-in-law that prompted me thinking about future race plans.

First I found note about some races I wanted to run next year. My initial intent was to finally run some of the California races I've put off in favor of the state goal.

Feb 2 - Twin Peaks Ultra

Mar 15 - Catalina Marathon

Apr 27 - Big Sur Marathon

I of course checked each of the sites today and was freaked to find that there are only 9 spaces left for Jessica's little 50K romp through the mountains. I better get on it soon. Earlier this evening I received this email from the Cruisers:
Everyone,

Big Sur has multiple races on Sunday, April 27, 2008. They have a marathon (6 hour drop-dead time limit), 21 mile, 10.6 mile, 9 mile, and 5 K race on that day. And they also have a marathon relay.

Monterey is about 6 hours driving time and 360 miles from here. You can get more information from this web site.

http://www.bsim.org/registration.htm

Please email us with your interest in this event. The 21 miler will probably fill in a few weeks.
Is there any other suggestion you have as to what event 10 to 20 of us can do together in 2008?

Dorothy and John

Sign me up!

My brother-in-law just spent a week with his Dad in Pennsylvania. Dad is convinced that we are coming to PA in Nov 11 to run the Harrisburg Marathon. Unfortunately my wife can't get away from work then and I really would rather she go with me. We've told her Dad we will be there someday but probably not 2007. He uses all the tricks he can to get us to come for a visit.

In addition, the BIL is moving his family to Houston and has invited us over whenever I'm ready to run TX. The Houston Marathon is January 13, 2008. It fits into the schedule nicely. I confirmed with Eric that Houston is a "concrete jungle"; not my favorite running surface but it will be hard to pass up the free lodging someday.

Not done yet. During the desk cleaning I came across a left over ticket on Southwest that needs to be used before Dec 1. I checked the calendar at Marathonguide.com so see if there was any thing I could sneak in between Marine Corps (Oct) and Rocket City (Dec).

I found a couple of races that look interesting:

Nov 18 - The X-Country Marathon, near Tampa, FL

Nov 17 - The Louisiana Trails Marathon, Shreveport, LA

Southwest flies to Tampa but not to Shreveport.

If I was a Marathon Maniac worth my stuff I would do all these races, one a month for six months. All that still only gets me to the next level, 2 Stars - Silver. This could be fun.