Fanatical or just plain crazy?

Guess what I’m doing tonight? I’m heading down to Yuma, AZ for the Yuma Territorial Half Marathon tomorrow morning!!!

I saw the event posted on a local race calendar and for some reason I really wanted to do it. I tried to talk myself out of it because Yuma is a three-hour drive. But on the other hand it’s an inaugural event, I get another medal, and I get to see more of Arizona before I leave. (Although I’m not sure what there is to see in Yuma… I should probably look into that before I leave.)

What finally pushed me over the edge though was deciding to do The Sedona Half Marathon with RunningLaur. I realized that with Rock ‘n’ Roll AZ, Sedona, and two races in between, I could jump up to Jupiter status in the Half Fanatics.

So here’s what my next three Saturdays look like:

• 1/23 – Yuma Territorial Half Marathon
• 1/30 – London’s Run Half Marathon
• 2/6 – The Sedona Half Marathon

I may even add one more event to the schedule on 2/14, but I’m not sure yet because it doesn’t do anything to advance me beyond Jupiter. By then I may be burnt out and tired of halves. At least I have plenty of time to decide because there are two races to choose from that day on opposite sides of the Valley.

The plan for tomorrow is to take it nice and easy. I’m going to do a combination of running and walking and the only goal is to finish. Right now weather.com is reporting 0% change of precipitation and I hope it stays that way!

Half Fanatic #259!

Look what came in the mail today… my new Half Fanatics shirt!

For the last month or so, I’ve been hearing/reading about the Half Fanatics from a bunch of different sources. Initially I wasn’t that interested, but then I realized that I already met the criteria to join with my eight halves in 2009. What finally pushed me to become a member though was actually the shirt. I want to wear short sleeves for RnR AZ, but don’t really like any of the short sleeve shirts that I currently have. (Well, I have a couple I like from races, but I don’t like wearing race shirts to other races.) So I figured why not join and wear the Half Fanatics shirt for RnR AZ.

It’s so much fun getting “real” mail (as opposed to junk mail and bills). At first I wondered what was in the package because I had forgotten the shirt was on its way. Normally I don’t buy clothes online because it’s so hard to know whether the fit will be right. Luckily the shirt fits pretty well. I went with a small and my only gripe is that the shoulders are a bit narrow. But a medium probably would have been too long for me.

I promptly took the shirt out for a run and did three miles tonight in just under 32 minutes. I don’t have the exact time because my Garmin is already packed. I leave for Baltimore tomorrow and don’t return until next Wednesday. The next couple weeks are going to be busy!

The main purpose of the trip to Baltimore is to look for a place to live. But while I’m there, I’m thinking about doing a 5 mile race held by the Baltimore Road Runners Club on Saturday. I also found a running group near where I’m planning to live that does group runs on Monday nights so I might check that out too. Then when I get back, RnR AZ will be just a few days away!