In Search Of The Perfect Spring Marathon

I've spent the past few days looking for a good Spring marathon to do.  This always happens right after I do a marathon or triathlon.  Suddenly I am super motivated and searching for the next race to do.  The Murph is totally baffled by this since I am usually so cranky the day before a race and sometimes race morning too.  He's told me more than once that if I don't enjoy it I should just quit.  He doesn't understand that my crankiness is my way of showing just how much I do enjoy it.

Besides the fact that I can't quit.  It's who I am.  A cranky, obsessive compulsive triathlete, type A personality who, if God forbid I did "quit," would be WAY more cranky than any pre- race crankiness you've ever seen.  Nobody would want that.  That would be BAD!

I reminded him that I was not cranky at all last weekend.  He even made a comment about how pleasant I was the day before the race.  He was very surprised at how NOT cranky I was.  I was kind of surprised myself.  Am I mellowing out in my "older" years?

My all time favorite Spring marathon was the Boston Marathon.  It was the third marathon I had ever ran in 2003.  My qualifying time for my age group at the time was 3 hour and 45 minutes.  I ran Hunstville Marathon in 3 hours and 43 minutes, barely making it to Boston.  Now my qualifying time is 3 hours and 50 minutes.  I do hope to run Boston again one day, but right now I am more interested in running a marathon in different states until I've run in all 50 states.

I wasn't very successful finding a marathon to run this Spring although there are several out there.  I would love to run the Big Sur International Marathon which is in April, but it is full and not very close. California is a long way from Alabama. Another option I'm considering is the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, which isn't very close either and it is in May.  My friend L (who is no longer the running nazi - just for the record) wants to do the San Diego Marathon which is in June.  That's getting into triathlon season and still far away and there are so many states close by that I haven't done yet.  Any suggestions?

For now, I am going to keep looking in hopes of finding the perfect March or April marathon to run in a state I haven't run yet.  I am almost totally recovered from my the marathon last weekend.  Only my calves are still tight.  I always have trouble with them since I seem to always run on my toes.  I ran my first real run that didn't involve a treadmill today.  It was a very easy 7 miles half on trails and half on pavement.  It was a beautiful day in the 50's warming up to almost 70 later.  It's no wonder I'm feeling motivated!