Race overload

So last night, my wonderful husband, who I will call Vans (because of his obsession? addiction? to anythings VANS skate related including but not limited to shoes, socks, shirts, boxers . . . you get the idea) tells me that we "need" to book a Southwest trip "somewhere" because they are having amazing travel deals.

Well I used to be quite the traveler in my pre-child/pre-married days so I jump at any chance (almost too quickly sometimes as you will see) to go anywhere away from home and away from the monotony of our every day life.

So after many minutes, that seemed like hours, we decided on a trip to Portland, Oregon. This is exciting for so many reasons. I have always dreamt of going to Oregon mainly because it is the home state of my favorite runner Prefontaine. So naturally, if I was to ever visit the state of Oregon, I wanted to do a run there. Vans agreed that "have to do a run" and so the search was on . . . googling away we looked for races that coincided with the dates we were "thinking" about traveling and of course, dates that agree with Southwest's small print (aka no travel on Friday or Sunday the two most popular days to travel).

Low and behold, in downtown Portland is the Run Like Hell Half Marathon, 10K and 5K!! What could be better!? Immediately we buy the plane tickets. Then I immediately sign up for the half marathon. I mean, if I am going to run a race, I might as well do the longer distance right? We're paying to get out there and I am thinking this is a great way to see the whole city! Right? Yup. Except (always an exception) when I got to work the next day and actually looked at my calendar, I noticed that the weekend before Oregon, I am running the Nike Womens' Half Marathon in San Francisco (already booked hotel and paid for race - ugh) and on the weekend after Oregon I am running the Helen Klein 30K (already paid for double ugh ugh). That's a lot of mileage in a short amount of time.

I am not worrying about it though. I am not going to even tell Vans of my incredible overload of races and my lack of planning. I am just going to "go with it" and see if I can do something I say I will do before every race and that is, run easy, do not race, enjoy the miles and the scenery.

So I think NIKE and Portland will be the "enjoyable" races and Helen Klein may just be an "easy" 18 miler on the American River Bike Trail. I will leave the "racing" for another day.