I know what I'm dressing up as for Halloween!

A tired runner!!!

I took a major leap of faith today and signed up for my first marathon! EEEECK!!!

So, on October 31st I'll be trudging around Washington, D.C. in the Marine Corps Marathon. Parental units- you have 206 days of notice to plan a trip to D.C. You know the hubs isn't going to remember to take pictures, so you're going to have to witness this one for yourselves.

Registration started this afternoon at 12pm Eastern Time and at 1pm over 8,500 people had already signed up. At 2pm there were over 13,000 registrants. So I quickly signed up before the race sold out. I kept telling myself that I had to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours in order to run a full marathon, but I won't be running another half until the end of May and there's no way I'd get into MCM if I waited until then.

I bit the proverbial bullet and signed up. Eeeck! I really need to start running and running more often. I'm running the DC Cherry Blossom 10-miler this weekend and I'm already nervous about that race. Due to the insane amount of snow Balitmore received and my crazy work schedule in February, I just started running again in March. I don't recommend getting in somewhat shape to run 10 miles in just a few short weeks. This weekend's race is going to be slow, but I just don't want to get hurt. Plus I'm going to try to enjoy the view of all the pretty cherry blossoms (if tomorrow night's thunderstorms don't completely ruin them). I'm going to focus on speed for my other summer races.

Three things I know I'll be doing this spring and summer:
1. Joining a gym- I don't want to and I loathe the gym, but I'm going to need to do a lot of weight lifting and cross training to pull this off.

2. Buying a bicycle- This is two-fold: I can cross train outside and the hubs can accompany me on long runs. I think it's a good idea to have someone with me because I do have asthma and I'm prone to tripping over random curbs.

3. Joining a running group- you know the expression, "it takes a village to raise a child." Well, it's going to take a lot of people to get my butt to run 26.2 miles!


Runners- any and all recommendations and pieces of advice would be greatly appreciated. Seriously, I'll listen to just about anything besides running barefoot because I'm that person who would step on a piece of glass two seconds down the street.