I believe I’m becoming more and more a gluten for punishment.  Over the past year, my running partner, Anni, and I have scheduled our long runs early Friday mornings.  Both of us were sick and tired of spending an entire Saturday consumed with long running.  For me, putting my long runon Friday mornings made it so I had the opportunity to not only long run, but also long ride all in one weekend!  Who can pass up a deal like that?!?

These Friday runs have become something that I really cherish and look forward to each week.  I’m not a very nice person when someone wants to interfer with our Friday runs.  They are kind of our sanity.  We talk about everything under the sun and run enough miles to keep us sane (at least most of the time).  We generally run anywhere from 10-15 miles with the occasional 20 miler thrown in during marathon training.  I’ve been shocked, actually, at how well my body has excepted these runs.  I generally run 3 times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) completing anywhere from 20-40 miles.  In the past I have struggled with burn out and overuse injuries…..but not recently (knock on wood with me, would you).  This middle-of-the-road mileage seems to be the key to my success.  My body has adapted to this mileage beautifully and my base is all the better!

The best part about this schedule is that whenever we want to run a half or even a full marathon, we are only 4 weeks out in training.  Give us a 20 miler to prepare and we are good to go.  It really is amazing what the body can do when properly trained.

So where am I going with all of this……..Well, I love this newfound endurance base.  I love the thought of being able to accomplish whatever I want, whenever it is available.  Both Anni and I qualified for Boston in October in the St. George marathon (BOY!  WAS THAT EVER BRUTAL!).  Boston is run in April and we had signed up to run the Ogden Marathon way back last August (Anni totally talked me into it when it was selling out!).  So we have had our work cut out for us this Spring.  We have no intentions of breaking any land speed records at these races and just hope for good conditions and solid runs to go along with it.  This is when the disease began.  If we can do two marathons, why not more 🙂

So, we signed up to run a 50 mile relay race in March.  Easy!  No biggie.  It will be fun.  We need a long run that weekend anyway……Why not be creative and do it relay-style?  Then my family and I decided to travel to Los Angeles to visit family over the weekend of March 18th.  Anni and I are scheduled for our final long training run before Boston and Ogden on March 26th.  I’ve known for a while that a long run is probably not going to happen for me on that weekend because I am part of organizing the executing the Biggest Loser Resort 5K at Tuachan (Ivins, Utah).  As I did a little research, I realized that the L.A. Marathon was the weekend we were going to be in town.  Well why not use that for the long run and why not invite Anni to come along too!  What a perfect plan?  Debit card ready……Here we go!

But wait……….Let’s review the schedule:
March 5th – 50 mile relay (Lake-to-Lake)
March 20th – L.A. Marathon
April 18th – Boston Marathon
May 21st – Ogden Marathon

Wow!  4 Marathon distances in 3 months.  The diagnosis is clear.  I HAVE A DISEASE.  Up and until this point I have run 5 marathons in my “career”.  Now I’m planning on 4 in 3 months.  I’ve caught the disease that everyone has been warning me about.  Watch yourself!  It is extremely contagious!

Ah!  We are not running them for time, it will be fun.  No, seriously!  I can’t wait.  It will be an awesome way to kick off my triathlon season in June.  I’m excited for June to come and my training to become shorter and faster.  I’m hoping that this base of mileage and marathons from the Spring will mean fast times in the late summer and early fall for some half ironman distance races.  Stay tuned!  I’ll keep you posted………..In the meantime, get the debit card out………you might as well sign up for that race you’ve been thinking about.  Why not?……..The disease won’t kill you 🙂