Home Ownership - Thinking Out Loud Thursday

It's been just under seven months of living in my new home, and I must say I'm LOVING it.  Being on my own schedule has been so wonderful, having my belongings around me helps me to relax a little more, and that feeling of "Adultness" is creeping back into my life.  I had dearly missed feeling like my life is my own!

Slowly, the rooms are coming together.  There's so much work to be done still, but I have plenty of time to make this house truly my own.  For now, I have a comfy, useable living room and bedroom; a fully functional kitchen with my own food stocked in the pantry; a nice office that's just about complete pending some wall art; and a craft room that is unfolding one day at a time.  Some rooms need accents and decor, but for the most part the house is liveable.  My "dining room" is giving me some trouble, since I'd rather have it be more of a mock solarium/hippie nook than put a table I'll never use in there and essentially losing the room...  And my basement will be an ongoing battle as I figure out how to arrange my storage, but eventually it'll include a game room and a home gym (which of course you'll see grow and develop right here).

Kaalia finally seems adjusted and actually is allowed free roam of the house while I'm out, which gives her the same sense of freedom I've been enjoying.  I also recently managed to get some fencing up, however temporary, in the sections of my backyard that needed barriers.  Now she can roam free when I let her out instead of being hooked on her yard leash and confined to a small section of the yard.  Playing Frisbee is so much easier now!

I'm finding that with a home totally my own, all my messy tendencies are slowly vanishing.  I do the dishes and the laundry regularly.  I keep my rooms tidy.  I put things away and am even getting a better system in place for organizing my clothes, accessories, crafts, and kitchen items.  Something about this perfect home has me finally believing in myself in new ways...  I've even revamped my wardrobe to dress in ways that make me feel good and confident!  The pieces are finally coming together.

It's amazing how freeing independence can be, isn't it?

Don't forget to check out the Thinking Out Loud linkup to see what other bloggers are musing about this week!  Thanks to Amanda at Running with Spoons for hosting!

What sets you free?  What brings out the better parts of you?

Time Limit Races

Warning: this may very well be an "unpopular opinion" post.  It's also Thinking Out Loud Thursday, so it's not the most structured post - just a mish-mash of some of the thoughts that have popped into my head as my first marathon creeps ever closer.  I'm not against people of all ability levels participating in events, but it's about selecting the event that is RIGHT for you, not just something flashy that happens to be popular but isn't actually a good fit.

I'm talking about races with limited entry numbers.  Lotteries and qualifiers that receive HUGE numbers of applicants trying to register, but are forced to refuse entry to many runners simply because the course cannot accommodate.  These races usually take place in large cities, like New York or DC - and of course I'm mostly going to focus on the Marine Corps Marathon because that's the one for which I have the most firsthand knowledge.

MCM has two time cutoffs on the course.  If runners do not complete the section of the course prior to The Gauntlet at mile 15 or the 14th Street Bridge at mile 18 (called "Beating the Bridge" and formerly at mile 20) in the allotted amount of time, they are swept from the course and are not allowed to finish with an official time.  Runners need to maintain a pace of 14 minutes per mile to stay "alive" on the course.  MCM also has a limited registration field, and there are thousands of participants each year who are unable to compete because of the overwhelming number of registrants.

My question here is, how many people are entering the MCM lottery system with hopes to register knowing they cannot uphold the 14 minute pace requirement?  And a follow up, how many of those people actually receive spots in the race that are essentially nullified by their inability to finish?

This is on my mind because I know there are many people who would love to participate in this event, but cannot because of the many people attempting to enter - but these people are far faster than I, and would certainly complete the course in the allotted time.  Conversely, there are many people who are well aware they will not likely make the cutoff who are posting on Facebook and other social media about getting in via the lottery.  I've even seen some people say things like "this will be my third attempt, I have yet to complete the course but hoping to move faster this year!"  This is a person who knows they will not likely finish the marathon, who hasn't finished before, who is posting exactly nothing about any kind of training to make it appear like they're trying harder, and who is taking one of those spots another runner could have won.

Last year, I wrote a response to a quote from running great Steve Jones that claimed he doesn't "believe starting and finishing a marathon makes you a marathoner."  In my response I defended the slower runners, the people running to beat themselves instead of running to win the race.  Everyone who completes a marathon IS A MARATHONER.  That's not the argument I'm trying to make here, and I will never, ever belittle a person's incredible accomplishment.  My problem right now is, sure you want to finish a marathon at your pace, but why not find a marathon that doesn't have cutoffs?  Why take a highly coveted spot just because it's a higher profile race, instead of choosing an event that will actually accommodate you?  If you can't Beat the Bridge, you can't finish the Marine Corps Marathon, which means you will NOT be a marathoner!

Many many marathons will accommodate any pace.  There may not always be tons of course support if you're finishing in six hours or more, but you'll still be allowed to finish.  Someone will give you a medal and a time and put you in the results so you actually CAN be a marathoner.  I wouldn't do MCM if I didn't honestly believe I could complete it.  And I wouldn't feel right attempting it, being rerouted because I didn't Beat the Bridge, not receiving an official finish time - and then saying I did the Marine Corps Marathon.  Maybe some of these people don't mind fudging the truth a bit when they don't make the cutoff.  Maybe they still claim they finished, and that's on their conscience.  If you want to do a marathon, yes please do it!!!  But, let's find you one you can actually DO, eh?  Don't you want the accomplishment to be true and meaningful?

A marathon is a serious undertaking.  Finishing a marathon is a huge accomplishment (no matter what pace).  There are plenty of opportunities to earn the accolades, though.  Let's save the time limit courses for the people who can reasonably expect to finish within the restraints.  Everyone has bad days and DNFs, but if you know you're going to be walking something like the MCM at a slow pace, maybe it isn't the right race for you.

So there's my rambling about marathons with time cutoffs and the people who attempt them with more than a reasonable doubt about their chances of success.  Again, I believe everyone who can cover 26.2 miles safely can be a marathoner!  But you should be able to do it on your terms, and a time limit race isn't always the best place for that.  If my Thinking Out Loud hasn't dissuaded you from checking out what other bloggers are thinking about, head over to linkup host Running with Spoons to read more recent randomness from the blogsphere!

What do you think - is it a bad idea for someone to register for a race they know they won't be able to finish, when there's a limited number of spots available?  How do you feel about people who don't actually complete courses but still claim to be a finisher?  Any suggestions for great races with no time limit?

Scheduling Issues

I have two of the greatest jobs in the world.  I have some incredibly fun and challenging hobbies.  And I have a handful of people in my life with whom I love to spend my free time - when there IS free time.  Lately, there really hasn't been much free time going around.  As a result, I (once again) haven't been posting as often as I'd like.  Today I'm taking a little time to think out loud about my crazy calendar and where my time is going.

Being a race manager is every bit as awesome as I expected, but it's also incredibly time consuming.  We handle so many events covering a very broad area, and many of my days are spent zig-zagging around town for meetings, course work, packet pickups, and any other little extras needed to put on a great event.  Weekends are booked with races, and while I love every second of being at event days, the early mornings are still hard to handle until I get a little more experience.  Once I'm more comfortable in the various roles I take on during my typical work week, and have a better feel for what to expect of different tasks, I'm sure I'll settle into the ebb and flow of the industry a little better.

Meanwhile, I still spend several nights a week at the gym, teaching back-to-back group exercise classes to some of the greatest ladies on the planet.  Mondays are the "big night", with an excellent Turbo Kick class preceding my Zumba-Pound twofer.  It's high energy and smiles for hours!  On Thursdays, my core and Pound classes are much smaller, and sometimes are empty.  I finally made the difficult decision to cut down to just Mondays to be a little more selfish with the time I've been spending traveling to the gym, waiting for a chancy class, and feeling burnt out when only two or three people show.  Having an extra night to myself - without pushing myself through two tough workouts because it's my job - will help me immensely with my ability to balance rest and hobbies with my work schedule.

Pretty soon, I'll be adding dedicated marathon training to the mix, and honestly, I'm a little worried about that.  Though I'm slowly developing better habits like coming home from work and running immediately, rather than "decompressing" myself into lethargy for the entire night, I've also experience many evenings of total exhaustion after spending days at a time running around town for my jobs.  Again, I'm hoping I'll eventually settle a bit with the schedule and things won't be so hectic once I have more experience, but what if that doesn't actually happen?  There's no way I can just show up to a marathon and expect to actually finish without some serious training, so I'm going to have to be careful and stick to my training plan amidst everything else.

Then of course there's the blog.  I have so many cool things to try during my training, and already am learning lessons that I'm dying to share, but with everything else on my plate, the time I have to write usually goes towards "me time" for now.  Yes, blogging is partially "me time" because it's something I love doing and actively want to do more often, but it's also something that requires focus and brain-turned-on-ness (okay, maybe that sentence proves it doesn't have to be turned on to blog) and lately there are many days when I don't have that focus.  Not having a place to set up a desk or office is another point not in my favor, though hopefully I will be able to find a place of my own soon.

On that note, I think a place of my own will make a LOT of this schedule headache go away.  Having a home-base, a safe zone where I can have my own things and my own space, will take a lot of the stress off my shoulders.  The transient feeling I've had looming over my head since leaving Chicago last year is in some ways a very heavy burden.  I know I'll feel much more grounded once I am able to settle down once again.  It'll be a mess, I'm sure, but it'll be mine and that's a big deal these days.

Sooooo...  All that said, I'm not sure how to wrap up this post nicely.  It's my first stab at Thinking Out Loud Thursday and I'm pretty sure I nailed it, but whaaaat do you say after you word vomit for so long?  I guess you say this: check out the linkup host Amanda at Running with Spoons and see what other bloggers are Thinking Out Loud this week!  And live from New York, it's SATURDAY NIIIIIGHT!