Decisions, decisions....

Now that Deadwood-Mickelson is behind me, I figured it was high time to do some decidin' on my fall marathon plans. I had this great plan put together back in April, which included me qualifying for Boston at Colorado and then launching into a 50-mile training plan using DMTM and the Missoula Marathon as training runs and culminating at the Lean Horse Half Hundred in August. But, the Ft. Collins Disaster (as I'm sure generations to come will refer to it) threw a major wrench into the works. Simply put, I had no Plan B. Well, now I do.....although it's really more like Plan A now, so I still don't technically have a Plan B, but whatever....

So, here's how it's going to work out (notice the use of will rather than should): I started a 15-week training plan this week, immediately after DMTM, which will incorporate Missoula as a training run and end with a BQ attempt at the Roughrider Marathon in Bismarck, ND on Sept. 20th. I'm shaking things up here; I've used Pfitz plans for every marathon I've run except my first. They've worked well, but I was ready for a change of pace (no pun intended), so I bought Jack Daniels' book and have been poring over that for the last few days. First off, anything with the name "Jack Daniels" on it has gotta be good. Second, I like how Daniels incorporates more tempo and marathon pace workouts into his plans. So, I pieced together a 15 week plan that will give me a couple of weeks of easy running after DMTM and then launch into a fairly high mileage (max 90 miles/week) plan for Roughrider. It's exciting and scary all at once....some of Daniels' workouts don't exactly look like fun, but what doesn't kill ya only make ya stronger, right? ....right???

Now, some of you are wondering how in the name of all that is holy I managed to decide upon a marathon in Bismarck, North Dakota, as my goal race. Good question. Here's my logic: the downhill course at Ft. Collins didn't help me as much as I thought/hoped it would....in fact it took a pretty good toll. To date, my strongest overall race, although it's no longer my fastest one, was the Fargo Marathon, which is a pancake flat course at lower elevation. I considered three races that were within driving distance for a fall BQ attempt: Denver, Montana, and Roughrider. I've heard Denver is developing into a good event with a fairly fast rolling course, but it's also at relatively high elevation. I ran Montana two years ago and it could also be a fast course, but includes quite a bit of downhill in one fairly short stretch, which totally bit me in the ass and led to me crashing and burning back in 2006. I didn't know a lot about Roughrider, other than it was flat because, well, it's in North Dakota.....flat is what they do best up there. I read the reviews on Marathon Guide and everyone was raving about the thing. For a race that typically draws around 100 full marathoners, it sure did seem popular. Also, Roughrider is at lower elevation; about 1600 feet compared to the 3100 I train at. An added bonus is that I've got an old firefighting buddy who lives in Bismarck and who I haven't seen in a long, long time and another friend I used to work with in North Dakota who I'm trying to convince to run the half in Bismarck. A 3:10 at Bismarck would likely put me in the top ten overall, which would be cool. And, they give cash awards to the top 3 in each AG, so I'd have a significant chance of coming home with $30, $20, or $10....enough to buy, like, 2 gallons of gas and maybe a soda; not a lot, but better than a kick in the junk. Plus, the name "Roughrider" just sounds cool. I made hotel reservations yesterday, which is generally my way of telling myself that I've actually made a decision. Bismarck, here I come!