As 2023 draws to a close I yet again find myself with big ideas about blogging my way through 2024. Based on my history, that that means you’ll see this post and maybe one more and then I’ll disappear until 2025. But here’s to hoping this time is different.

2023 was a big year for my running journey. In March of 2023 I ran a marathon. Technically, it was my second marathon since I did run one back in 2014. The 2014 race was a whole other deal. It was a trail race on a technical course for which I had not trained. So it was basically a 26.2 mile hike. I consider the 2023 race my first real marathon because it was the first one I really committed to and completed. I trained for it consistently with my Raleigh Galloway crew and luckily there were others targeting the same race so it made it easy for us all to do our long runs together. My primary goal was to finish and I did that with no issue, finishing in 5:26:16. 

In late 2022 I had also signed Jp and I up to do a 2023 series of races here in NC that I’d been eyeing for a number of years. The series is called the Big Ass Medal series. I’m not joking. That’s what’s it’s called.  It was a series of four half marathons in coastal North Carolina that I’d first seen info about at the expo for the Diva half in Myrtle Beach back in 2019. The organization that runs the series is very focused in a specific part of the NC coast (from Wilmington to the SC line) and the races are generally pretty small. While the concept of the series was really compelling and we did finish all four, I can’t say I’m deeply inspired to run them again. Almost all of the races included running bridges that were pretty miserable to traverse and the courses just weren’t as scenic as you might expect. 

After the marathon I got inspired to add another challenge to my year. I’ve been a member of a group called Half Fanatics since 2010. I qualified that year with my running of six half marathons in six months. Half Fanatics has a series of levels that require increasing insanity to reach. Having done the full marathon I felt like I was in the kind of shape where conquering a new challenge was possible – so I decided to go after two. First, I decided that I wanted to try to beat my 2010 half marathon PR of 2:24:28. Second, I wanted to level up in the Half Fanatics by running two half marathons in 2 days. 

With those goals in mind for the 2nd half of 2023, it was time to get serious about leaning into the challenges I’d set in front of myself.