Changing up my Race Schedule

Yesterday morning on the way back from dropping LMS off at nature school day camp (more on that next week), I had the radio on and heard an announcement about the 4 mile race I've done the last three years. It was about joining a fund-raising team, but you had to be registered and registration was closed.

Wait, what?
When did that happen? I thought registration was this Saturday.

When I got home, I checked, and sure enough, registration was full already. I guess it opened this past Saturday. Last year I got an email giving me a heads-up, but I didn't this year. Maybe they booted me from the list because I don't do any fundraising. I learned that I am NOT a fundraiser when I did Team in Training for my first half marathon when LMS was about a year old, and now I just skip that part.

Anyway, registration was full, but I could get on the wait list. If I was able to register from the wait list, it would be $15 more expensive than the already high registration fee (I don't remember it being as expensive in previous years).

Ummm. No. I'm not paying that kind of money for a four mile race. Half marathon or full marathon, yes. Ten mile race, maybe. Four miles, no.

So I spent a chunk of my afternoon looking up local races to find a replacement race for August. While I was at it, I put all the local races, except those held on Sundays, into a calendar so I can start organizing my race schedule for the next couple years.

Like I remembered, there's quite a variety of races available, which will really help fill out my 40 by 40 checklist. A couple events I'm adding:
 * a river regatta. A good excuse to finally get a kayak!
 * 2 mile run
 * foam run. This will be .... interesting. Probably right up there with the color run.
 * a glow run. At night with glow sticks!
 * a parent/child mud run. LMS and I will run it together as a team. Mr M wants to do it with The Little Mister, but he's not old enough :)
 * an 8 hour trail run. Basically you do as much as you can in 8 hours, but it's to meet your expectations, so the distance doesn't matter. I'll probably aim for 50k, which is 31.1 miles. If I manage that distance, it's considered an ultramarathon because it's longer than 26.2 miles. Not something I EVER considered doing, but strangely feel drawn to now. But just once. Though that's what I said about the marathon too, and I'm planning on doing another one of those in the next couple years.

I've got all the distances I originally listed except a 25k, and am adding the 2 mile and the 50k. I'm sure if I keep looking I'll be able to find a 25k. I also don't have an out-of-state or international race earmarked yet since we don't have our vacation plans scheduled out that far in advance.

And I did find a sprint triathlon that's not on Sunday (I wasn't sure if I would), and it also has the option of a duathlon. So one year I can do the duathlon, and the next year I'll do the sprint triathlon.

The duathlon, triathlon, and river regatta are the only events that incorporate other sports besides running. At this point I'm not sure if I'll keep looking for other options, or just leave it at that.

As I filled in my calendar, I noticed a distinct lack of races in certain months. January has just one option, on the first (hence the reason I wasn't able to come up with a replacement when I missed it this year). June, August, and December are also a little short on options, though July is surprisingly full.

After all that, I have three races to consider, other than the 4 miler, in August. I'm planning on at least two of them, but we'll see how my training goes. I had another great run outside this past Saturday- I was able to run more hills and longer distances than I've done in awhile. It was very encouraging and I hope I'm able to keep it up.