Marathon Maniac # 3809 - That's me!

It's official.  I've crossed over to the Insane Asylum. I never thought I would, but after a streak that qualified me to enter in the bronze category of Marathon Maniacs' rigorous criteria, why not? As a bronze entrant, my marathon streak was 3 marathons in 56 days. That was Napa Valley Marathon (Mar. 6), Oakland Running Festival (Mar 27) and The Avenue of the Giants (May 1).  I'm now Marathon Maniac #3809. I'm pretty excited that I met one of my goals for 2011. It was hairy there for a while. In the beginning of the year, I started out a little wobbly.  I was super gung ho about getting back into training fresh from a PR in NYC marathon.  Intense workouts, hills and speed was my recipe for disaster. I unknowingly aggravated my piriformis. For several weeks leading to Napa, I had a lot of downtime.  My training for Napa Marathon was hampered and I didn't almost make it to the line. Visits to the chiropractor proved futile.   Luckily, I found my problem and accupuncture was a Godsend. I was able to run Oakland, but had to cross out all speed work-outs to minimize aggravating the piriformis. My time in Oakland was not the greatest but I had to remind myself that finishing was the ultimate goal.  Heading into the Avenue, I continued to be careful and dropped all speed workouts again. Turned out to be a good decision.

Speaking of NYC, I found out opening day of the NY City Marathon, courtesy of my friend Rich, I made it in the class of 2011. I was so sure that I would not be so lucky, (two years in a row--please don't hate me), that I signed up for CAL International in December.  I thought, there was no way.  All day I was glued to my computer at work, logging in my profile every hour on the hour to see whether I got in. Only message it spat out was Check back tomorrow at 10 am when your profile log in will be available. It wasn't until I got home when I logged on to FB and Rich gave the somber news that Mary Wittenberg didn't give him good news. It would have been sweet had he gotten in, as he would have raced on his birthday. I asked, How did you know so fast? Where do you go to find out?  My heart was thumping so fast, I couldn't type fast enough, my fingers kept going to the wrong keys. I was back-spacing, deleting, calling my computer all kinds of names...well ok I exaggerated.  Then Rich gave me the link to the site. I thought I was going to look it up myself, but he beat me to it, and gave me the words that were music to my ears "You're in."   I thought it was an April-fool's joke. Well, no, I think what I said, was "Are you freakin' kidding me?" (Sorry Rich, I was overcome with excitement.)  I had to see it for myself: I typed in my name in the link and there it was. "Congratulations! You've been selected."  Then the next thought, how do I break this to my ball and chain? I was thinking about the expense. We had a previous discussion that if I get in, I would defer to the next year. But that was all before I read the fine print and realized the real cost of deferment. Anyway, I thanked Rich for making my day that Wednesday April 27, 2011.  New York here I come. Ahh, is it too early to pack?