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The family is going to San Diego in January and I'm planning to run either the half or the full. I haven't signed up yet because I can't decide which. If I qualify on 29 Nov, then I'd just want to run the half. If I don't, then it would be nice to have a backup. Now if I don't qualify on the 29th, it seems unlikely I will on the course above, but if there's something crazy like snow or maybe I just have a bad day, it would be nice to have a backup.
I could run the half and then use the local George Washington birthday marathon (mid-Feb) as a backup but that race is notoriously cold and windy (and fairly hilly). Plus you have to run by yourself (most likely) while Carlsbad has a 3:15 pace group.
The B&A trail marathon is pancake flat, but it's in the beginning of March . I think Boston filled up in at the end of February this year, so this is out and mid-Feb might even be pushing it.
OK, I think I've just talked myself into signing up for the full at Carslbad! (And now I look at the website and you can transfer from full to half until January 4th! -- not sure this applies if the half fills though.)
4 comments:
Darn! I just typed up my comment and blogger said "no!".
Oh well. What I said was that you "should" qualify with no problem given your training. With that said, we all know race day can fold for a number of reasons out of our control. So good idea to have a backup plan. Although you may not want to wait until Feb - why not piggy back off your current training season rather than requiring a rebuild? Just my thoughts.
Looking at the elevation chart, I vote for the half!!! :) Hopefully, it will be a non-issue come Feb!!
Yeah, seven weeks apart is kinda no man's land. I did 4 weeks apart and that worked well (MCM and NCR in 06) and tried it last year and got injured between races (MCM and NCR again).
Not to be rain on the parade and all, but you may want to take some real time to let things heal up...4-6 weeks of recovery, recovery, recovery...if you do go ahead, Mindi's right. There's no reason to rebuild--your aerobic fitness is there--just recover and transition ala Pfitzinger.
I guess I should have been clear about the plan. The possibilities are
1) I qualify on 29 Nov. Yay! I switch to the half for Carlsbad.
2) It snows or something crazy and the race is cancelled or I get smart and don't run it. Then, I just continue training and run the full.
3) I run on 29 Nov and don't qualify. Boo! I run Carlsbad and try to redeem myself.
The plan for #3 is just easy running with minimal to no workouts. This is what I've found works in the for these kind of heroic (read: stupid) efforts. The only way I expect to improve in this case is if I just had a really off day on 29 November.
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