Whether I'm ready or not, racing season seems to have already started. I've already paid for two races, the Yukon Days 3 mile Snowshoe Race and tomorrow's Securian Half Marathon, where Laura will be running her first race of the year. I'm now debating whether or not to sign up for the Afton Trail Run 50k in July, and then the Chicago Marathon in October.
I guess tomorrow's half marathon is not really a "race" for me, as my training has been pretty miserable up to this point. If I want to run the Afton 50k, I'm really going to have to stay on top of keeping up with injury prevention and start running a little more consistently.
I want to train for a 50k again for two main reasons. First of all, I really enjoyed my last Afton 50k. Secondly, I love telling people I'm training for a 50k so they get all impressed and say something like, "that's so far." Plus, it's great when people ask, "how far is 50k?"
I like to think that I'm not some running snob who thinks that anyone who has to ask, "how far is a 5k?" or, "how far is your marathon?" is a total moron. I am, however, a little bit of a math snob. So when a runner or someone who I know has run multiple 5ks asks me how far a 50k is, I have a really hard time not saying, "try multiplying 3.1 miles by 10, genius."
I have such a hard time not saying that or something like it, that sometimes I do mistakenly let my math snobbery slip and say, in a real sarcastic manner, "well, a 5k is 3.1 miles and a 50k is ten times farther than that." It feels mean, but sometimes I just can't help it. It amazes me how many people make it through life without being able to multiply by ten. Of course, if we just went with the international system of measurement and measured everything by kilometers and all those other great metric measurements, none of this would be a problem.
Tomorrow the Securian Half Marathon may be cut to a quarter marathon due to horribly cold weather. A quarter marathon is half of a half marathon, and a half marathon is 21k. Since I've learned from experience that most people have no interest in doing the math to figure it out, a quarter marathon is 10.5 kilometers, or 6.55 miles. I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning if I'll be running 13.1 miles in bone-chilling wind chills of -17 degrees Fahrenheit, or only 6.55 miles in internal organ-freezing wind chills of -20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Happy Running!
1 comment:
Ha! I can totally see you saying these things! Good luck at whatever distance you end up running. I will enjoy my long run in 40*F temps. Not to rub it in or anything. ;) Although I pray I don't slip and fall, which is very probable these days.
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