What should I do this fall?

Here we are on March 31 knocking on the door of spring so of course all my focus is on my running schedule for the fall.

Sigh.

One thing I hate about marathon running is how much time it takes to prepare yourself to run a good one. You have to decide months in advance what your A race will be and make all your plans around it. And when I say "all your plans" I don't just mean running plans I mean ALL your plans. Besides running, my other favorite pastime is travel and Brian and I are trying to plan our vacations for the rest of 2015 and that means I need to determine how many spare vacation days I will have for running trips vs. regular vacation trips and the dates of the trips will need to fall around big running weekends. It's all so complicated. This doesn't happen with a 10K!

Last Wednesday I found out that I was lucky enough to get chosen in the lottery for the 40th Anniversary Marine Corps Marathon which is great because it's my favorite marathon and I have a bunch of friends who also got into the race. This means a great weekend with friends on a beautiful race course. Sounds great, right? It also means that I probably won't be able to hit a PR at this race because there will be too many distractions - the huge size of the race field and those aforementioned friends. At heart, I'm a social runner, I prefer friends and good conversation when I run to pushing the pace. I can't be at a race with friends and PR. I know because I've tried to do it in Philadelphia in 2013 and the result was not a PR and the only marathon of my 28 where I finished feeling sad - not about the missed PR but about the missed experience of running with my friends. It was a lose/lose. So if I choose Marine Corps, I will be choosing to run for fun not for the clock.

Which brings me to Option 2: Steamtown Marathon. I haven't run this one but I've heard from many running friends that it's a fantastic race. It's a great course, it has wonderful support, a great medal and it has a reputation for being VERY FAST. This would be a great option for me to run this fall as my A race. This is the clear winner if I want to run for time on the clock. What's the catch? It's two weeks before Marine Corps. I could choose this one but if I do I will probably lose out on the camaraderie at Marine Corps weekend. I have run full marathons two weeks apart before but I can't say it was the smartest thing I've ever done and I'm not sure I want to do it again. But then again, maybe I do?

Option 3: Have I mentioned my friends who are trying to run marathons in all 50 states? I have a few of those. I might be one of those people myself (I've got ten states but haven't joined the club....yet) That crew is planning to run the Outer Banks Marathon in early November. I'd love to see these people and run with them again. Most of them I only interact with online but I've run marathons with all of them in the past but this race is two weeks after Marine Corps. It's a flat, fast course, which is good for PR but then I have the friend problem again. If I run in North Carolina I pick up a new state. (Does that go on the Pro or Con side of the list?)

And then we have option 4: the Rehoboth Beach Marathon in December. A good friend is planning to come run this one as part of her 50 states quest. I'd love to join her since I've run the half here in the past and enjoyed it enough that I want to come back for the full. But this run will be with her so again, no PR option.

Let's not forget Option 5: the Philadelphia Marathon. Probably my second favorite race. The race where I set my PR. The course I know the best. The old standby. Easy to do, easy to skip over because it will always be there.

Odds are good that I will run at least two of these races - maybe even three of them. I can't run them all. I don't even want to run them all. (Well, I do, but I know that I can't actually pull that off.) I don't know how to choose. I don't know what's the most important thing to me right now.

Registration for Steamtown and Philadelphia starts tomorrow. Time to start flipping some coins...