in which the runner makes a small announcement

are you ready for this?
i have decided to run another marathon.

... yeah, did you see that coming?

i decided this in the shower today. wait i didn't take a shower today. i think i decided... while deciding not to take a shower, actually. (this is not as bad as it sounds. i went swimming today, which makes showering complicated... i'll do it before i go to bed, i promise. the gentleman in my household is very understanding. ok, this is getting us off track.)

in case you missed it (HOW COULD YOU) i ran my first marathon in october 2013. it was pretty rad.

then -- i wasn't into racing for a while. i did other stuff. i did run, but i also did other exercises and things and maybe sometimes didn't even run (although rather seldomly). anyway, i wasn't into racing in particular for a few months, and then on and off for a few months after that, and all of it was cool.

but in the last month or six weeks, running is back to being my number one favourite way to endorphinize. i ran half marathons in late april and early june and though they were each rather hard in their own ways (the archive will tell you) i'm still pretty happy i ran both of them. (ok, no, wrong. i'm NOT happy i ran the first one, because i was sick and actually way sicker than i thought and it was probably partly responsible for all the illness i suffered in may. the actual point is that i'm pretty proud of how i *managed* that race mentally, despite my suffering, even though i know now it was dumbass stupid and i hope i learn not to do that again.)

and anyway: since then i've been reading running blogs again, and thinking more about runs and signing up for races (one in july, one in october; not yet signed up for the one in september i can't decide on a distance for...). i am going to baltimore for like 3 days in august to visit a friend, and i almost signed up for a 12 miler while i'm there until i thought through the look of (justified) bafflement i was going to get from said friend.

and it's worse. are you ready for this confession? i'm not just reading marathoner blogs. i'm reading ULTRAmarathoner blogs. ok, this is just sick. WHO DOES THAT. i've only run more than 20 miles ONCE and it was kind of a thing. so, no no no no no.

i try to remember what i felt like at mile 22? i was really hot and i had just run off an island and i had just seen a pace group pass me and i was pretty angry at the universe. there were a bunch of people cheering but they seemed to me very stupid people, cheering very stupidly. and i still had 4 miles to go. doesn't that seem like something to avoid?

and yet.
i've decided to run another marathon.

next step: which one?

for personal, meterological and logistical reasons, i think it will have to be late april or early may. it will have to be in north america, because i won't have too much time for the traveling and jet lag is not kind to the digestive system. and probably it should be in the western half of the continent, but not somewhere too hot because i will be completely out of practice at heat from training on the tundra.

this still leaves me with several options: BC, washington state, oregon (which is insanely full of runners)... is there an alaska marathon? OK FOCUS.

the point is.
i'm gonna do it again.

... ok, back to real life. i'll be back here soon to talk myself out of it, or something.
(small voice: i bet not.)