To The Races

Any one who knows me well knows that I have developed a habit since my divorce. I have been running marathons. I have average two a year for the last couple of years. To be fair it was a bit of a shock to my system the whole divorce thing. What with me not seeing it coming and all. There were worse things I could could have done other than running. Drinking heavily comes to mind, but that tends to impair your ability to care for the children. Since mine where 3 years and 6 months when things hit the fan so to speak; they tend to need me to have my wits about me such as they were. So I began running... a lot. Having run a marathon prior to having children it just seemed natural that I would set my goal to run another. One thing led to another and 6 marathons later here we are.

Except for this summer I am not getting many solo runs in. I have run a lot with the girls in the jogger and had few solo runs but not many. Not enough to get my long run distance up where it should be. I am feeling some frustration and beginning to accept that I will most likely not be ready for a fall marathon. Unless I can find a November one that I can make my way to...

At any rate I needed a goal, something to shoot for, a purpose for training. Ladies and gentlemen I have found my race. I registered last night for The Race to the Top of Vermont.

http://www.catamounttrail.org/news/secondannualracetothetopofvermont/

The course is 4.3 miles up the Mt. Mansfield toll road. I am excited and a little nervous too. I know what it feels like to run a marathon but up a mountain? I raced a race when I lived in Las Cruces, New Mexico that went over Baylor Pass, but that was a 6.2 miles with two miles going up and four going down. Not sure how this will compare- although on that race I fell on the downhill and had to run a ways picking cactus needles out of my left palm. So this race looks to have fewer thorny things to land on at least.

I am hoping that my summer of running pushing 90 pounds of kid in a jogger will be good training for the mountain. At the very least the race should be a good story to tell! Hopefully I can get some friends to come cheer and possibly claim the body at the end.