What I'm doing instead of the Des Moines Marathon

Most readers of this blog had no idea I was even considering the Des Moines Marathon, so the declaration that I've decided against it doesn't have quite the impact.

After my half marathon success, I began to wonder whether I should take on a new challenge, and the obvious next step seemed to be a marathon.

The even more obvious next step seemed to be the Des Moines Marathon: It takes place in late October; I live near one of the more challenging portions of the race; and I now work from home on flexible hours.

What I didn't account for, though, was the freedom of no longer working nights and weekends. I've been taking full advantage of this new development — it's like summer break for grownups, because there's time to play and income to fund the fun.

There were a few other factors pushing me away from the marathon, but that was the primary one.

Here are the races I'm considering instead:

Bix 7 (July 25). I still have to figure out whether I trust myself to not party too hard during the July 24 Cheap Trick concert in Coralville and then wake up at 5 a.m. to get to Davenport by 6:30 a.m. for day-of packet pickup.

Also, I'll be honest: Racing in Des Moines has spoiled me when it comes to race-day travel. With the exception of RAGBRAI 2014, I've barely given transportation and parking a thought since I left Rockton.

But the outlook looks fairly promising. I'm struggling with motivation to run, and encouraged by the general feasibility of doing this race.

Capital Pursuit (Sept. 20). The website claims it's a fast race, so we'll see whether I can beat my last 10-mile race, which definitely incorporated hills. This will force me to train, but not to suffer: I'd probably start training the last week of July (or early August, if I do the Bix 7).

Sycamore 8 (early December). An off-road race in the Midwest in early winter? If that doesn't say "new challenge," I don't know what does.

Half marathon wild cards: I would consider doing the NewBo half marathon (Sept. 6), the Des Moines half (Oct. 18) or the Hillbilly Hike (Nov. 7).

Friends have expressed vague interest in doing the NewBo half and the Des Moines half, so I offered to run with them should they decide to do so. Also, NewBo and Hillbilly both also host a 10K; I could use those as a baseline, if 10K becomes next year's speed target.

And finally (geez, I ramble), I have two formal bike rides actually planned: this weekend's Bacoon Ride, which we could manage to stretch into a century ride, and more importantly, the Tour de Fur on Aug. 30, which benefits Furry Friends Refuge!

My plan for returning to running

I haven't run in almost three weeks, but I have at least been thinking about it.

Specifically, I've taken time to be my own sports psychiatrist, and I've diagnosed myself as needing to ease back into running and learn to like it again.

So here's what I've come up with.

July 1: Open my mind back up to running. Twice a week at most. With only the expectation that it won't be easy or fast.

July 27-Aug. 3: Relax and rest up after RAGBRAI.

Aug. 4: Start a 10K training plan.

Last year, I started training for a half marathon at the beginning of August, right after I'd done RAGBRAI, and it worked out great. This year, the thought of doing that makes me tired and overheated.

As my hairdresser said when I told her I'd most likely skip the 2014 Des Moines Half Marathon: "Yeah, you wanna have fun during the summer."

Yes, I do. I like having something on the horizon, but the local long races are just too close to the dog days of August and two months of intensive biking.

A 10K seemed better-suited to the conditions. Plus, I've never done a road 10K race — only a nighttime trail one — so it'll be interesting to see what I can do.

Sept. 8: Do the Maffitt Lake five-mile. This should be the right combination of fun and challenging — i.e., exactly the kind of carrot/motivation I need.

Fun, because off-road running is scenic and lets me lower my expectations for myself without feeling like I'm a wimp, and challenging, because Living History Farms is the only off-road running I've done since moving to Des Moines.

Sept. 20 or 21: Do a 10K. Preferably the one on a Sunday, if I can find sign-up info and not just a date on the local sports store's race calendar.

Sept. 28: Do the Brew Mile. I again won't have time to do much mile-specific training, but I'll have more residual strength than I did before the Grand Blue Mile.

I'll have the power of the crowds pulling me along, and because I work Saturdays, I'll have the advantage of sobriety over the participants who have already hit up Oktoberfest.

Oct. 11: Do the Boone County 5K History Walk/Run. I'd better start thinking about a clever costume that also allows for good movement, because this time of year is much better for running.

If my schedule and motivation level allow, I might look for a serious 5K in hopes of breaking my PR, but I'm not going to stress about it. I'd rather be a little lazy the rest of this year than risk ruining my hobby for myself.

Five-year anniversary run

As far as I know, yesterday wasn't the exact anniversary of anything important in my life.

But as I ran around Raccoon River Park, the mix of fall and summer weather, plus the forested gravel trail, I kept reminiscing about similar places I used to run — the Stone Bridge Trail in Roscoe, Ill.; Schmeekle Reserve in Stevens Point, Wis.

I rode that wave of nostalgia all the way back to 2008. That fall, I went on my first non-rain-related run since high school.

I didn't get hooked on it until spring 2009. But if I hadn't, one fall evening, for absolutely no reason at all, seen how far I could jog around my neighborhood until I got exhausted (not very far), there would've been no springtime running obsession.

So I guess it's the equivalent of first-date anniversary versus wedding anniversary, and as I have married friends who celebrate both of those milestones (and why not?), I think I'm well within my rights to declare my first five-year running anniversary.

I am also exercising a little bit of poetic license, because the run during which I thought "huh, it's been about five years now, give or take a month" was a rousing success.

Spurred by some gentle teasing, I decided to at least run the 10K my training schedule told me that I should do this weekend in a race. Going fast wasn't necessarily my intention, but it happened.

Five years after I couldn't even run half a mile, I ran 6.2 miles at an 8:25 pace. The later miles were a little bit of a struggle, for sure, but I have a hunch that they still felt better than that first quarter-mile in fall 2008.

(Which, by the way, was definitely uphill. Raccoon River, on the other hand, is beautifully flat.)

It's hard for me to say what I'm prouder of: that I've come so far with running, or that I've stuck with it through the bumps.

It's also hard for me, as an inherently unathletic person and as someone self-conscious about bragging, to acknowledge how I got to this point.

For all the credit I jokingly give to beer and pork (which I consume more now than ever), or the pointing at perfect weather and terrains, this is actually because I'm putting in the effort. Discipline and persistence is paying off.

Plans for the new year emerge

First things first: I'm still not running, nor have I picked training plans or their desired outcomes. However, thanks to friendly nudges from my co-workers, I have been finding and signing up for races.

Originally I'd thought of doing the Dam to Dam, mostly because I knew it existed, but I showed up at work Tuesday to find that Emily — who'd invited me to do the Des Moines Half — wanted me to join her at the Drake Relays' half marathon.

The benefit of having a buddy to hang out with pre-race aside, the Drake Relays also appealed to me because of how much earlier it is: I'm less likely to be overtrained by April 28 than I will be June 1, and I'm also less likely to overheat in late April than I am on Memorial Day weekend. The memories of melting down, literally and figuratively, during a half marathon last year on May 20 are too vivid to risk a June 1 distance race.

Hibernation ends Monday (yep, once it gets cold again in Des Moines, go figure), so that would leave me with 3.5 months to prepare for Drake — a big enough gap to tempt me to overtrain.

I'd been urging various other runner friends to either join Emily and me for the half or any of the shorter events on the same day. My reference to making matching T-shirts might have scared some of them off, but it didn't dissuade Marco — whose Remembrance Run registration I used after he pulled a muscle — from showing interest in the 6K.

And there was my answer to how to stretch half marathon training across 3.5 months: pick a smaller distance in the meantime. A tip on the Capital Striders' Facebook page led me to exactly what I wanted, a 5K in March in the Des Moines metro area. It's the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick 5K on March 24 ... with a start time of 11 a.m. What a great stroke of luck!

During my search for that 5K, I did come across a 10K that seemed intriguing: the Capital Striders' Loop the Lake, held at the same spot where I PR'ed so emphatically during the Remembrance Run 5K. (Is it a sign ... ?)

However, I think I'll hold off on signing up until I build some sort of responsible training plan, i.e., decide which distances I should train seriously for in hopes of reaching any goals (that I haven't set yet), and which distances should be fun tune-up races ...

... says the person whose most strenuous activity in 2013 has been carrying laundry up and down stairs.

Triathlon before age 30? Technically and maybe ...

I don't remember exactly when or why the idea "do a triathlon before you're 30!" popped into my head. (I'm sure Runner's World deserves some of the credit/blame.)

It's been at least a year, though, since it crossed my mind, and even with ample warning, I still didn't manage to do my hometown's annual duathlon in the spring. Weird work schedule blah blah blah, I told those who called me out on it.

The true barriers to achieving this goal, though, are my poor swimming skills and refusal to pay for access to a pool.

Enter some college besties with a brilliant solution: "Let's do the Hy-Vee Triathlon next year as a relay team," they said as they showered me and my cat with housewarming gifts.

A shortcut to a bucket list item? Even better than catnip/shiny items/fleece blankies/fluffy new towels!

Chelsea can swim the 1.5K, because Zach sinks like a stone and I dislike getting my face wet and struggling to breathe (completely different from having my face merely damp from sweat and struggling to breathe).

I can run the 10K, because Chelsea and Zach, despite having completed the Warrior Dash with me in 2011 and pounding the pavement like champs during heat waves, hate running.

Zach can bike the 25K, by process of elimination.

And I can ironically call myself a triathlete before age 30 — with three years to spare, even.