more adventurous

I've started to plan my races for 2012. Since I didn't run any half marathons in 2011, I need to accomplish quite a bit next year. I made my plan under the assumption that I won't be getting into vet school. Its easier this way. If I DO get accepted, I could be in one of 5 states and it could totally change what races I have immediate access to/what races I can afford. SO:

January: 3M Half Marathon- Austin, TX
April: GO! St. Louis Half Marathon- St. Louis MO
July: RAGBRAI- IA. (For now, I'm counting this for Iowa even though its not a half marathon)
September: Omaha Half Marathon- Omaha, NE
December: Ole Man River Half Marathon or Althea Iron Girl Half- New Orleans, LA

The method here is that I know someone in these states, they are within driving distance from illinois, or  they are the destination for a previously conceived family vacation and happen to conveniently have races available. For example: my best friend lives in Austin, family in SLU, Omaha is drivable (and their finisher medals are recycled glass!), and New Orleans is a vacation. Besides these couple outliers- my plan is to conquer the Midwest first, but I am saving Wisconsin for the Madison Mini.

I'm excited to start training for half marathons again, since the training for Chicago really decreased my half time. I am still pretty confident I will be able to get to my goal time for 2012 which is 1:50:00. I don't know if this is an easy goal or not since it is 7 minutes slower than my current time. Hopefully it will be easy and I can even get into the 1:49 range! With all my recent physical therapy, I know what to change about my stride, and hopefully this will help my endurance, my hips, and my time. RAGBRAI should help with the cross training aspect of racing as well as as few sprint triathlons that I plan to try out. Recent physical developments have pushed me more towards the idea of triathlons and away from the idea of marathons and ultras. I want to run a half iron man in 2013. Swimming will definitely be my weak point, but I don't think I'm alone in that regard.