I was too warm for the New Bedford Half Marathon on an unseasonably hot March day in 2024…

Last year is the year my body started to tell me to cool it a little bit with the marathon running.

I feel very lucky that I have been healthy enough to do the training it takes to get through 26.2 miles.

But I also am aware that I am no young’un and this won’t last forever and it certainly won’t last forever if I keep pushing my body to the limit.

So last year I did two half marathons in the spring and then the New York City Marathon in the fall.

And I have a mind to do something similar this year.

This goal became easier to achieve when I got the lottery spot for Chicago. The marathon is set in stone.

I have a couple of ideas for a half marathon, one of which includes tomorrow’s goal, so we’ll wait for that post before I develop any other big plans.

There are no huge goals for these races. Well, you know that I’d like to run the marathon in less than 5 hours, but that’s really not a shooting for the stars goal. It just means I gained a couple of minutes…and for a half marathon, I guess it depends when it falls. I actually forgot to mention last year I did a third half marathon in September as part of my NYC training. It fell on the week I was supposed to run 16 miles so I ran the 3 miles to the half and then completed those 13 miles. (Which were really miles 4 through 16.) It was not my best half, but I didn’t care. It was a fun way to break up a training long run. I certainly didn’t run that one for the medal.

…and I was so cold after an unseasonably cold day in May I forgot to take this medal picture until after I got my hot coffee on the way home. I did much better in this half than the other one.

I guess there’s no chance I’m setting speed records with a half marathon this year. I do think at some point if I train for a fast half marathon I might be able to break 2 hours. That’ll be a fun goal to try to achieve another year.

If I hadn’t gotten into Chicago what would I have done, you ask? Good question. The Philadelphia Marathon is in November and it always has some awesome-looking medals, so that’s one I’d like to do before I hang up my running shoes. There’s also a marathon in Massachusetts in early September, I think? which would be very convenient. And a couple of others in New York worth considering - one in the Hamptons, another in the western part of Long Island.

But I will save those for a future year.

This year it’s some 5ks, I’d like to run a couple of 10ks I see on the racing calendar, and the Chicago Marathon.

Along with a half marathon to be named later.