Looking Forward to Fall Races

I'm watching many of my running friends announce that they've won the lottery! The lottery being getting a bib for the NYC marathon or the Mt. Washington race. Just like the Boston Marathon those races have more runners interested than there are spots available for runners. To control the amount of runners, instead of having a qualifying time, they have a lottery. For a week or so the lottery is open to enter, and on a certain day they select who gets to enter the race. The Marine Corp Marathon opens it's lottery soon.

With all that I started to think about Fall races. I want to avoid what happened last year after my half, where I ran once and then didn't run regularly again for months. For me, running is not simply a fun exercise hobby, it is an important part of my mental and physical health.

Accurate depiction of my exercising over the summer of 2017.

The problem is do I sign up for another full marathon before I have run one? Expecting that I will want to run one again. Or do I sign up for a half marathon? Which I could easily stay trained for, and avoid any additional training. Unless I wanted to improve my pace. Or do I get lazy for a month or so after my marathon? The likely solution is to sign up for a marathon, that has a half option that way I can switch down to the half if I need to.  Or do I do something completely different?

The weekend of September 29th/30th has a bunch of races that appeal to me.

NH Marathon because NH.

Smuttynose Half Marathon many of my friends have done this one and I know many will do it this year.

Clearance DeMar Marathon Leaves! 6 hours of leaf peeping at a speed safe enough to appreciate.

Go Ruck Light in Boston - Not a marathon or a half, a different kind of challenge. Different type of training as well and likely more expensive due to need for equipment.

If I expand my search from there, the list grows and this is only focusing on New England. My race bucket list keeps growing as I learn about more and more races.

Another alternative is to keep running and instead of half and full marathons in the fall, start working on my speed to get that sub 70min 10k I wrote down as a goal. Or go for The Hamster Wheel race and add an Ultra sticker to my car.

Next year I will be entering the lottery to run Mt. Washington and likely try and complete the mountain goat races to guarantee entry for 2020.