It is time…

For what you ask? Besides the obvious, for this stupid Houston heat to go away and let me run outside, I mean? (We all know that!)

No, it is time for me to find an in-person 5K to run as part of my training. The sign-up date for the Springtime Surprise Weekend at Disney World is coming up on August 22, and I need to get my butt in gear so that I am ready, not only to get my kids training for their races, but to train for my own races! I think I want to do Stitch’s Ohana Challenge, which is all 3 races—the 5K, 10K, and 10-Miler. I’ve never actually done a 10-mile, so that will be fun. (I’ve done longer distances, but never that specific one.)

Stitch???

If you’re unfamiliar with Stitch, I should probably give you a quick rundown of Lilo & Stitch. It’s one of those lower-budget Disney movies that probably gets made when someone is just like “Sure, why not?” in a brainstorming session. Basically, a little Hawaiian girl, Lilo, ends up adopting an alien who accidentally ends up on Earth. Said alien, Stitch, was created as a genetic experiment who is supposed to want to destroy cities and generally wreak havoc, but he can’t handle water and ends up on one of the more remote Hawaiian Islands. Hilarity ensues, family bonds happen, and the soundtrack involves a lot of Elvis Presley. It’s one of the cutest Disney movies out there.

As an aside, let me just say I’m glad the “surprise” in Springtime Surprise is characters I’m familiar with. Do you know how screwed I would be if this race was all about Marvel? I can’t catch up on Marvel over a weekend. That would take some serious dedication and maybe a university-level course on who’s who and what’s happening.

Why do other races to train for a big one?

One word: motivation. Let’s just say that, without a reason to train, I’m more likely to train to be an amoeba than I am to train for a race. I find myself motivated by deadlines, whether I set them for myself or other people set them for me. In fact, if I convince myself that I’m letting someone else down if I don’t meet the deadline, I tend to do better because I want to make that person happy. Is this a healthy way to be? Probably not? Is it probably rooted in some deep-seated people-pleasing need that likely means I need to have a long conversation with my therapist? Yes, probably.

But, if it works, and in this case, if it gets me off my butt and gets me serious about my running, I’m going to use it to my benefit.

But, you can have too much of a good thing.

I love medals, and I love 5Ks, but too many 5Ks can get in the way of getting longer distances done. It’s back to that whole lame “everything in moderation” deal, I guess. (I don’t know who decided we need chocolate in moderation, but that person is dumb and needs kicked.)

But, that all being said, most training guides out there do recommend running a couple of in-person races—usually a 5K and a 10K—to get used to the feel of running an in-person race. It’s not the same as stepping out the door and just going for a run. It actually involves some planning for things like where to park, how long to plan for travel time, when to eat breakfast before you go, navigating the pre-race port-a-potty lines, where to put your keys and any cards you want to carry with you, and all of that. As I have mentioned before, I like virtual races to help me train, but I like to add a sprinkling of in-person races too, to help me judge all of the logistics and to prepare to think of the day-of shenanigans that I know will come with actually going out somewhere and dealing with other humans.

Decisions Decisions…

On the positive side, I live in a big city, and I have a million in-person running events to choose from. On the negative side, I live in a big city and I have a million running events to choose from! A slightly anxious person like me can easily get sucked into analysis paralysis and find herself losing her mind trying to decide which race to run!

So let’s narrow this down. I want to choose a 5K in the Houston-Galveston-Sugar Land side of Houston about 6 weeks out. That would mean roughly in mid-September (and hopefully out of the worst of the heat), and it cuts out the races in the northern half of town. The weekends of September 16-17 or September 23-24 would be ideal. This brings it to even fewer races. There are several that sound interesting, so now it’s just a matter of picking one that sounds most interesting to me. The final decision for me comes down to which course is likely going to be more comfortable. The one I choose involves a flat, shady course, which is going to be much less miserable until about November than much of anything else in the Houston area. I might make a different decision if I didn’t live in Satan’s armpit.

Now that I have a race chosen, I will be running toward a smaller goal. That will make my overall progress a lot smoother, and then it will be easier to get the kids out and having fun running as a family. For now, the small humans are still swimming and enjoying being fish people because it’s too hot in this state to do otherwise. I’m still running on my nice, air-conditioned treadmill, but I’m still getting my miles in!

I’ll keep you posted on how this goes!