I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions. They don’t work. Those of you who go to a gym regularly know how annoying the first few weeks of the year are. All the New Years resolution people show up. You have to wait to access equipment that you don’t normally have to wait for. They don’t know the rules and hog equipment or don’t wipe it down. They say they’re going to change their lives and start working out regularly. It’s cute. But the gym is back to normal by mid-to-late January. It happens every year. So I haven’t set a resolution. But I have made a decision and I have made a plan.

Earlier this year I entered the lottery for two races: The NYC Half and the Chicago Marathon. I got into NYC. I didn’t get in to Chicago. I was debating what my goal races should be. Should I try the NY Marathon lottery since I didn’t get into Chicago? Did I even want to do another marathon? I wasn’t really sure. One day Jp made an offhand comment that he may yet regret. He said “what if we run a half marathon every month next year?” Hmm. That’s interesting. So I thought about it. And then I went and looked at the Half Fanatics level criteria. If I added just one more – for a total of 13 – then I could level up again. With one caveat. All of the races have to take place in different states. They don’t have to be states I have never run before, just ones I haven’t run in this year. While it was certainly going to be a logistics and planning challenge it felt possible. 

Jp and I were both already signed up for races in January and March. So those months were all set. I started researching. I made a spreadsheet. I checked in with him on some ideas. And I started signing us up. So that’s the plan for 2024 – not a resolution, not a goal, a plan. 

While I have started signing us up, I’m still researching and taking recommendations. Here’s the schedule so far:

• January – 3M Half – Austin, TX
• February – Atlanta Half – Atlanta, GA
• March – NYC Half for me/ Tobacco Road Half for Jp – NY, NY/ Cary, NC
• April – Knoxville Half – Knoxville TN
• May – Flying Pig Half Marathon – Cincinnati OH AND Carderock Running Festival – Carderock MD
• June – Hatfield McCoy Marathon (Blackberry Mountain Half) – Williamson, WV

That’s as far as I’ve gotten for the year so far. I have some possible/likely races for the remaining months but Detroit is the only one I’m feeling strongly committed to and I can’t really travel west in both July and August. Have any of you done any of these? If yes, do you recommend? Or are there other races you recommend? July and August especially have very few options. My goal is to (1) do races that I’ve heard are great or (2) races that have an interesting twist or (3) races that are in places that I’m interested in. Of course those goals are balanced against the goal of not going broke doing all of this. Here are the races that I’m still considering:

• July – Foot Traffic Flat Half – Portland, OR
• August - ET Full Moon Half – Rachel, NV
• September – DC Half – Washington, DC
• October – Detroit International Half Marathon – Detroit, MI
• November – Richmond Half - Richmond, VA AND/OR Holly Springs Half - Holly Springs, NC
• December – Rehoboth Beach – Rehoboth, DE

My goal with this blog for 2024 is to share this crazy journey. At minimum, I’d like to share a race report for each of the events. But maybe I’ll also post about my training journey or my life along the way. What would be most interesting to you?