After completing my first marathon back in October I took a look at the race calendar and planned out the big races I wanted to do in 2013. I had a few prerequisites:
1. Pick the race for Team Active:Water. When I became a team captain for AW I chose the Canton Marathon races for my first team captaining adventure. Well, over the last few months some things have come to the surface and I wasn't too sure that they would be having a race next year. Also because of these issues I wasn't very confident in the amount of people the race would attract, if they do have one. I'm not entirely sure, but putting me on the cover of the paper may or may not be one of the reasons they're having troubles...
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| On the cover of the Canton Repository. It looks like my jaw is in the process of breaking off... |
2. It has to be close! As much as I loved the city of Chicago and as much as I'd love to visit every city and run it's streets it's just not in the cards. After Christmas we're stepping the Dave Ramsey system into overdrive. We took the classes last winter, and were doing really good, but fell off the horse. If at first you don't succeed try and try again (and sometimes try some more after that). Any race selected had to be within driving distance. No hotels. No turnpikes. No gasoline stops.
3. No Sunday races! Simple enough. I don't want to miss service at the Mill because of an extra curricular activity.
With these prereqs in mind two races were chosen. Cap City Half Marathon in May and the Akron Marathon (Team AW event) in September. Both close-ish (Cap City is two hours away in Columbus but it doesn't involve a hotel visit since my sister lives outside the city) and both on a Saturday. Success! That was simple enough....
CHANGE OF PLANS!
A couple months back I received an email from the Cleveland Marathon people asking runners to sign up to be a blogger for their race. If selected I would receive free race entry and a good platform to talk about AW, running as a ministry in general, and all the other junk I talk about. I thought about running the Cleveland full but it was the day before Aimee's birthday and since I ran the Chicago Marathon on Savannah's 3rd birthday, with her in Ohio, I was on a strict "no running on birthdays" orders. With very little pleading Aimee gave me the thumbs up for applying. What a great woman she is! The application said that they'd announce the blog winners on December 10th so in the months following I didn't think too much about it. School, work, and family afforded me the luxury of forgetfulness.
On December 10th I finished up my semester with a couple exams. The rigors of academia were lifted off my shoulders. Ahhhhh... Breathing is nice! I get home and what do I find? Cleveland's Facebook page posts! Can this be it? Has all of my not-very-hard work paid off? No.
"due to an overwhelming number of outstanding applicants, we are adding a second category to our blogger program for 2013"
Crap. This doesn't bode well for me...
December 11th. I wait. I wait. I wait some more. Time for the announcement.....
I didn't get it...
Don't frown. I ended up getting a guest blogging spot. Instead of posting for the race every two weeks, I'm going to get one of my posts sponsored by the race between the months of January and May. Hey, I'll take it! Unfortunately I don't get a free race entry but I'm excited for the chance to share and expand my audience (I went from 1 to 2 followers) and get some good recruiting for team AW. On top of that the race is early enough for me to get home for service. Score! So now I'm doing the Cleveland half marathon. I love the city of Cleveland. Bring it on.
Running streak update!
It's still going. Everyday I get a different temporary pain but it's nothing too big and it disappears within a few minutes. I am pretty sore though. Good thing is I feel like I'm running the strongest I have in quite a while. Times are decreasing and I'm able to put more and more miles on my new tennie boppers. I'm also getting to know the neighborhood a little more. Yesterday I even saw some deer (and it terrified me).
Christmas update!
I'm an idiot. Turns out you have to put YOUR address on the shipping information so you get the presents you ordered for your wife, who knew? I know the season isn't about all the gifts but I like getting stuff for her. She's too good to me. I've felt convicted to improve my faith walk and it's the best season to do it. Keep me accountable please. All the races, fund-raising, and running (actually everything I say or do) is useless if I'm doing it for myself.
Thanks for reading everybody.
It's been real.
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