Drat! Missed Today's Workout

I should have logged about 6-7 easy miles today, but Life got in the way.  I had to work through lunch in order to take off early to pick up the kids from school.  I thought I'd find time later in the evening to run, but first it rained, then I ate dinner and had to digest, and now it's too late.

That puts a serious crimp in the week's plan.  It's a cutback week anyway, with the half marathon on Sunday, but missing today leaves only Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for the rest of the week's mileage.  I do NOT want to run on Saturday and risk being spent at all for the race.  I'm a bit nervous about La Jolla.  I admit it.  I can feel my confidence eroding.

I wonder what a coach's advice would be about running twice tomorrow.  I could do a simple 5 mile easy in the morning before heading off to work, and then do the planned 5 mile tempo run at Lake Miramar with Quin, my pacer, on his bike.  That would get me close to on track for the scheduled weekly mileage I had planned.  I think my conditioning should allow me to handle that.  I just don't know if I want to experiment the week before a key race event.  A strong run in the La Jolla Half Marathon is kind of important to me.

Speaking of which, I finally stopped procrastinating and registered for the A.F.C. half in August.  I was putting off spending the $80, but I started to get worried that it might sell out and leave me stranded.  I'd hate to have put in the work for the first two leg of the Triple Crown, only to be denied because I waited too long to enter the final race.

So that's done, and I'm thinking it might be the end of my "racing season."  I'm going to evaluate whether or not I want to do more marathons after I see how the San Diego thing goes.  I might decide that once is enough.  Or maybe I've got the bug.  I do enjoy the training and having a performance goal to work toward.  Might I want to set a long term goal of achieving a Boston Marathon qualifying time?  I actually sketched out a timeline to see how that might work out.

I know I won't get that qualifying time here in my 1st marathon.  Going by the 50-55 men's age group, I need a 3:35 time.  I ought to be able to do that by the end of the year, I'd think.  That would make the Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll in December or Carlsbad Marathon in January good candidates, but they'd be too late for Boston 2011, since registration for that race will likely be full by November 2010.  So I'd have to look further ahead to Boston 2012 as being my first realistic opportunity.  Is that something I really want to do?  I kind of think so.

A nominal 2-year marathon schedule might look like this:
June 2010: San Diego Rock 'n' Roll Marathon
January 2011: Tri-City Medical Carlsbad Marathon (1st chance to qualify for Boston)
October 2011: Marine Corps Marathon (2nd chance to qualify for Boston)
November 2011: apply
April 2012: Boston Marathon

And after that?  Perhaps try to get into the New York City marathon, probably start by applying in March 2011 to start racking up the rejections, since I think after 3 denied entries your 4th application is guaranteed.  Which means there'd be some careful timing required since I'd want to apply for New York and get the word from the selection committee before trying to snag a spot in the Marine Corps marathon during the narrow window in April when that registration is open.

It's all just fantasy and I'm getting ahead of myself.  I need to get through this first one first.