CHOICES

Can I do it all?

 

A couple years ago, I commented somewhere (that was before I came here) that there were (are) so many long-range things I want to do, I need to take a year for each of them. The Year of the Ironman (did that, 2 of 'em.) The Year of the Ultramarathon (in progress.) The Year of the Boston Marathon (hopefully in progress.) The Year of the Transcontinental Bike Ride (still out there.) The Year of the Appalachian Trail.

 

It appears that that last item is closer than I thought. It's moved up several notches on the list. I met a friend, Sally, in Winchester, who wants to do it. A few years ago she bought all kinds of gear but somehow got waylaid. She's been reading trailjournals.com for years and she's got me hooked on it.

 

Sally's a runner. I met her on the road mid-run. She was running with a pit bull and a baseball bat. No one gonna bother this babe. Turns out the bat was to defend her pit bull from other dogs, since the pit wouldn't defend herself. Just goes to show, you can't judge a book by its cover. Same goes for Sally, since, if you met her in the grocery store, you'd be meeting this very alert, sweet 60-year-old lady, but unless she told you, you wouldn't realize she regularly runs 7 miles and wants to hike the Appalachian Trail.

 

Well, Sally and I wanna go, and therein lie the choices.

 

If (if) I qualify for Boston this fall, well, the Boston Marathon is in April. But your qualifying time is good for 2 years, so I could still do the Trail in 2008 and run Boston in 2009. But a group of my dearest friends are planning to do Big Sur together in 2008. Do I do Boston, or the Trail, or Big Sur?

 

If I don't qualify for Boston this year, one choice is out of the running, so to speak. I wouldn't have to choose between Boston and Big Sur. In fact, I could do Big Sur the end of April and then fly to Maine and hike the Trail southbound. Starting it the first of May, northbound wouldn't work as well; it would be too cold getting to New England in November. If we started that late, we'd have to start in Maine and go south. Which is a viable, although less common, option.

 

So I could do both Big Sur and the Trail in 2008, and then try for a BQ in 2009 and hopefully run it in 2010. That seems so far off! Would I be in a new age group by then? Hmmm, if I wait another year, I could qualify as a 60-year-old, which might be good, too.... the qualifying times get more reachable as the age groups climb.

And I'll be in such good shape by then :-)

 

Don't ask where I'm getting the money for all this. I got no answer to that.

 

This Trail idea is adding to my computer time. In addition to Blogland, I now have the Trail Journals. I'm following people who have become my favorites. They refer to each other in their journals. Someone will mention Snow Plow (they all have Trail Names, like Hash Names) and I'll recognize him from someone else's journal, just like blogging.

 

I have a massage treatment scheduled for Monday for my ailing left leg: From heel to butt, it's tight as a fiddle string, making my runs very achey affairs.

 

4 more weeks till the Vermont City Marathon. I was going to run 20 miles this weekend and 22 in 2 weeks, but I'm going to wait till sometime next week for 20 and let that be it. I'm too tight and sore to fit them both in. And I'm talking "Ultra" for 2 months after the marathon? And "Speed Training" after that hoping to run a BQ after 2 more months????

 

~Sigh~ Right now my projected marathon pace is about 4:40, and I need a 4:15 some time this year. Or next. Or not.

 

If I am picking berries at these vines, I can't be picking berries at those. Does it matter, if my basket is full?