Running to Stand Fast

I got bad news when I woke up this morning. My application for the Dipsea Race was rejected because they had already given out all of their places before I had even mailed mine and I didn't have much luck at the lottery, but then that's not really ever been a strong suit of mine; I'm not much good at fishing either, except for this one time when I was a kid at a Catholic school carnival with my next door neighbors, the Gross's (yes, that was indeed their very unfortunate name). I went fishing in one of those gold fish booths where they hook some sort of prize on your line and I won a big ol' Pineapple Upside Down Cake (the first one I had ever seen let alone tasted) and proudly took it home to be devoured by the family. To this day Pineapple Upside Down Cake is one of my favorites and I'm sure it has to be because of that fishing booth. Now that I think of it, that entire experience might explain a lot of my concept of God, my devotion to religion for the 45 years since, and probably even my love for New Orleans, undeniably the most Catholic city in the United States, but I suppose that's really material for another blog (probably relegated to Butting Heads)... In any case, I woke up this morning to discover that I had not gotten into this year's Dipsea and I AM BUMMED.

All that said, one particularly positive thought did cross my mind and that is that I've been steadily reevaluating the wisdom of my Big Sur Marathon plan over the last couple of weeks with the thought of moving my marathon goal to the San Francisco Marathon at the end of July. This would have the advantage of both giving me time to train more effectively AND to raise more money (being that most of you people have not really been holding up your end of this blogging bargain). It would also allow me to go to the first weekend of Jazz Fest which has been grinding on me a lot. The one downside of the San Francisco Marathon has been that, being on the other side of the rather precarious Dipsea, I might have sprained my ankle or broken my leg prior to having the chance to run. So I decided to take my rejection in stride (this was aided by my daughter's suggestion that she might actually run Dipsea WITH me next year) and consider it a confirmation of my new marathon plan.

SO... here's the new plan.

Instead of running (really mostly walking) The Big Sur Marathon on April 29, I will be RUNNING the San Francisco Marathon on July 29. This holds an extra little perk in that August represents the 30th anniversary of when I moved to San Franicsco in order to attend seminary. In addition the race is three days away from the second anniversary of my move to New Orleans, and my subsequent exile back to California.

To really make this inspirational (for me if not for you) I am launching two very audacious goals. One is to run this marathon in under 4 hours which will be a significant record for me (and about two hours faster than I was imagining I could run Big Sur). The other is that I am upping my fundraising goal. I plan on raising... drum roll please... $26,200 ($1000/mile) for New Orleans charities when I run this race.

I'll be letting you know more about that here, and I will be putting up an informational website on the fund raising shortly, but if you'd like to get on the mailing list for info and updates, please drop me a note at thom@speaklo.com.