Don’t get excited. This is not the announcement that I’m changing my 52 in 52 challenge to an every state plus U.S. territories challenge. I’m not.
Although, as of tomorrow, within 10 half marathons, I will have already covered 6 places…
Stop it, Aurora. I think you have at least 25 in California alone this year.
I’m writing this post because sometimes when I daydream, I think about how I’d love to run a marathon (that’s right, preferably a full marathon, so I better get training) in all states and U.S. territories in 1 year.
(We all agree there are 6 territories, right? American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands? Those are the ones the government’s website lists.)
A couple of months ago, I was dreaming that I’d get super crazy fit in secret, and emerge out of nowhere in a few years for this big 57 challenge. But this 52 half marathons in 52 weeks came up sort of out of the blue. And I am so, so glad I’m doing a smaller challenge first.
Even having only done 9 races so far, I’m learning a lot about a year full of racing, and I think these lessons will be helpful when that big year comes around. Someday, when I attempt this challenge (or when we do, when some of you jump in with me), we can peruse this post and remember some things we’re learning from this current challenge.
In my dream world, I’ll attempt this 57 feat when I’m happily writing on The Simpsons. I’ll somehow find a way to sneak away to a marathon once a week. I’m sure we’ll be super writers who are very fast, never having to come in over the weekend to work on a script.
I’m sure that’s not how it’s going to go down at all. But let a girl dream, okay? Anyway, I sneak out for a marathon once a week and get straight home to keep up working. And if that is how it works out, well more power to me! I will be fine with only going to a state for a few hours to run, ’cause I’ll be working on the freaking Simpsons!
However, if I’m not a writer, and I’m not doing some kind of fun dream job that keeps me in a physical place every week, then the year I decide to do this, I need to either have saved up enough money to not need to work for a full year, or I need to find a job I can do remotely.
I haven’t been home in over 5 weeks, and this is definitely the way to do it, my friend. Exploring different places is fun. (It is possible that what I mean by that is having New York as home base is what’s fun, but I don’t think that’s what I mean…)
I would love to go run a race, spend the rest of the week (or at least a few days) in that place seeing various touristy attractions, trying delicious local specialties, and then moving on to the next race.
This whole relaxing, visiting, eating thing brings me to my next point, which is that I would really want to be in a body/fitness level that I just want to maintain. (If I’m fit enough to do 57 marathons in a year, I think it’s pretty safe to say I will most likely be at the maintaining level.) While traveling, it is much easier to maintain yourself than improve yourself.
It’s not impossible to travel and improve by any means. The world is a gym. People can still get workouts in, if they want to make time for them. And we don’t have to try every food that someone says is delicious. Even if we do try a lot of stuff, we don’t have to eat any more than a few bites. But it is much easier to maintain than to improve on the road. Not impossible, but it’s the way I’d prefer it for sure.
I couldn’t fit all my thoughts into one post. Part 2 will be coming at you after the posts about the April Fool’s half marathon in Atlantic city tomorrow!