When I started this post a few days ago, I told you I’d give you part 2 after this past weekend’s race, so here it is.
Doing 52 half marathons in 52 weeks, I have definitely had to do some maneuvering of puzzle pieces to make my complete picture. I’ve worked pretty hard, and I’m still not done.
Doing a challenge that is so specific would take a lot of time and energy just to get the schedule together. (Some states have very few marathons each year.)
Most importantly, I’ve learned that races get cancelled. I have already done a few inaugural events this year, and I have more coming up (even one this weekend). I think inaugural events can be super fun. However, I’d need to be somewhat wary about newer or smaller events because they definitely can be cancelled. Already, in the last few weeks, I’ve had to re-work the schedule (and even let go of a series I was doing) because of cancelled races.
Speaking of things unexpectedly being cancelled, and things changing – always buy on Southwest. Always. Always, always, always. I already knew this to be a true statement. But every once in a while, when I’ve been looking for plane tickets for my current challenge… Let me give you an example.
I was definitely going to do Rock ‘n’ Roll Seattle. I was also definitely going to do a race the next day that was part of the SoCal half series.
They were only one night apart, so I was certainly going to fly home from Seattle in the late afternoon/early evening. I could get something set in stone, because why would I possibly need to change this ticket?
When I checked for plane tickets, Virgin America was having a sale, and was a bit less expensive than Southwest. I thought “Virgin is a cool airline. I like their TVs in the back of the headrests. It’s cheaper. Why not?”
Let me tell you why not. A race in the SoCal race series got cancelled. I couldn’t really make that series work anymore, so I could drop that California race if need be.
Then Seattle became a full marathon*, and dropping that half the next day seemed to be a good idea. [*edited to add: Seattle later switched back to being a half again (though I guess that’s kind of my point – things are always changing)]
I’ll either have to race to the airport immediately after the full marathon, with a tiny glimmer of hope that I will make that flight, or pay to change it so I can spend the night hanging out with my family celebrating my first marathon (which is the option most likely to happen.)
If I were on lovely Southwest, I could change the ticket as much as I wanted with no fees. Lesson learned!
I have said “lesson learned” about Southwest before in my life, yet made the same mistake, thinking, “I know it’s smarter to fly on Southwest, but these plans are definitely not changing, so I’ll be fine.” This time I have, for real, learned the lesson that plans that “are not going to change,” really are still pretty likely to change (with me, at least). Southwest, Southwest, Southwest.
Another thing that would be nice is to start out with a whole lot of money (as opposed to paying along the way as you make more money).
If you register for races early, they have lower prices than then do as it gets closer to race day. Not to mention, sometimes you get gifts with race registrations during special promotions (for instance, if you register for any of the Rock ‘n’ Roll races at other Rock ‘n’ Roll races, you get special t-shirts).
It’s also nice that I’m easing into the blog on a smaller challenge. When I started blogging, it took a long time just to figure out on which site I wanted to host the blog (WordPress).
Of course, there’s plenty of other blog stuff still to learn about after that – child themes, staying organized – all that jazz. I’m still learning about the blog and how to make it better. Hopefully by the time the 57 states/territories challenge comes around, I’ll have a better handle on the it all.
Whenever one of us decides to jump into this challenge, let’s remember we have this post to help give us a few pointers as we plan the big adventure.
For now, I’ll keep focusing on the current adventure. (I still don’t have the schedule completely finished!)