the summer races.

Now that I've gotten my crazy out for the world wide interweb to see, it's time to talk races. I had mentioned doing another half marathon this summer, I had been wavering on doing it. Last week I finally decided against doing the Lucky 13.1 race in Missouri, in the end I wasn't excited about it, and it sounded more miserable than anything. The heat and humidity are just dumb right now and the thought of trying to PR at a half marathon in it, well that's just a recipe for disaster and frustration. Then I considered doing a trail 5K in Kansas City instead of a half marathon. Seeing how my foot still feels pretty bruised up from the last trail race I did, that didn't sound appealing either.

Instead (drum roll please) I'm going to do a first as far as racing goes. I'm going to run an 8K, I've never done that race distance before. It's at a local YMCA and goes through a nice paved trail area in a nature preserve. Not to mention 4.98 miles (or whatever an 8K is) sounds so much more appealing in this weather than 13.1 or a 5K trail race. So that wins. I'm excited to do it with several of my running buddies, should be a good time. The best thing about it? The thought of doing this race makes me happy, and makes me want to run.

In addition to the 8K, I'm going to go and attempt to defend my somewhat pitiful title at a local 5K where I won my age group last year in the pouring rain. I'm not sure I'll actually defend my title, but it's a small race for a good cause in a suburb outside of Wichita. Plus, Oz Runner will be there and I haven't raced with him since the same race last year, so it's about time!

To cap off the summer races I have planned, I will most likely go and do the Fourth of July Firecracker Run in Rogers, Arkansas. Since I'll be there anyway and since it's a fun race (with awesome swag) that I've done the past two years, why not continue the tradition. It's a ridiculously hilly race near Beaver Lake, where I spend every July 4th with my family water skiing and eating. The eating part is very important. So why not go off on my own for a morning to run and get my butt kicked on monstrous hills? Sadistic fun, that's what that is.

That wraps up the extent of my summer races. August in Kansas is NOT good running/racing/doing anything but sitting inside drinking cold beverages weather. There aren't many races to speak of, so unless a 5K pops up somewhere randomly in August, I won't do any races.

I'm going to run these summer races because they sound fun and because shorter distances are sounding oh so appealing right now. I know I'll be doing long runs on the weekends as well but somehow that's different than trying to suck soup while racing 13.1 miles. I'm pretty satisfied with this summer race schedule. Cheers to hot, sweaty, disgusting summer running my friends.