I'm not quite sure when I decided that 2018 would be my marathon come-back year, but at some point the idea of doing a marathon popped into my head, and with the encouragement of some teammates, I signed up for Santa Rosa some time in April right before Buffalo Springs. I knew that doing the Buffalo Springs half Ironman in June wouldn't satisfy me the entire year, but I'm still not ready for a full Ironman. Why not settle for a marathon? My longest run for Buffalo Springs was 15 miles long and I figured I could easily "slide" into marathon training after the race. In the back of my head I got the idea I could Boston Marathon qualify, and with some encouragement from my coach I was pretty confident I could pull off a 3:30. Background: my previous PR for the marathon is a 3:53. And that was HARD. And when I tell people this, they almost always reply "yea but you've never done an open marathon -that's in an Ironman". To which I always smile, som...
I like geography best because mountains & rivers know the secret: Pay no attention to boundaries.