It’s 2013 and the whole year is ahead of us. I can’t recall being this excited to start a year before! Thirteen is my lucky number; it has been as long as I can remember. My Mémère was the 13th of 13 children and I, her 13th grandchild. This created a special connection between us that, even after her passing 21 years ago, stays with me wherever I go. My social starts with 013, my favorite racing distance is the half marathon (13.1 miles) and my birthday is on the 26th day of the month (2×13). I could go on, I am a numbers person and enjoy drawing correlations between all kinds of number combos, but that’s not the point here.
In honor of my lovely Mémère and the blessings in my life as I begin this year, I will complete 13 races by December 31st, 2013 (that’s 13 backwards by the by). This may not sound like a huge feat, and clearly to some, it is not. It is, however, more than one race a month and the greatest number of races I’ll complete in a year, to date. My highest count of races completed in a year prior is five. In fact, in the five years since I became a runner, I have only raced 21 times. One third of those races were half marathons (there is another 1/3 too). So for me, this is a challenge, and one I am readily setting for myself with no room for failure.
I’ve done some planning and mapped what I can of the year ahead. I’ve targeted at least one race a month that interests me, and left myself some wiggle room. I’ve also set aside a race budget because running 13 races is not cheap. A few that no doubt make the list: The Broad Street Run in May (fingers crossed I’m selected in the lottery), The Race for the Cure on Mother’s day, Dock Street’s Philly Beer Week run in June, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon in September, and we’ll see whether I’ll tackle the full or just the half come November for The Philadelphia Marathon weekend.
Today I registered for my first race of 2013: The Phillies 5K, on Saturday, March 23rd. While this is the first race I’ve registered for in 2013, I don’t see it being the first race I complete this year. I’ve got my eyes set on two races in particular before the gun goes off at the starting line of The Phillies 5K. I don’t want to jinx myself here, but one of them happens to be this coming Sunday, January 13th, 2013 – how apropos.
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