Surprise! I’m running the Baltimore Marathon!
Maybe it’s not that surprising, given that it showed up among the possibilities when I wrote a post about which fall marathon to choose. But it might not have been my first choice – if I hadn’t tripped and fallen into a bib.
My friend Sarah is also a runner with multiple marathons to her name. Last year she signed up for the Baltimore Marathon but was forced to defer. This year (why? Don’t ask me) she signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon too, based on the assumption that, like last year, they would be on different weekends. Well, they are not. So she was sitting on two bibs when she only needed one.
Enter me, a person who has been mostly building her race schedule up as she goes along. “Which one don’t you want?” I told her. “I can take it off your hands if you like!”
And that, friends, is how I wound up with a Baltimore Marathon bib.
It’s a more challenging course than Marine Corps; or, to words the used in the website course description, it is “challenging but fair.” Which I guess means it’s got hills but not, like, Big Sur level of hills? It also promises a Heartbreak Hill-esque portion BUT ALSO the last five miles are allegedly downhill. Downhill! Not just straight – DOWNHILL. So already we’re in better shape than Rock ‘n Roll DC.
Bonus, I get to run through Camden Yards! Go Os!!! (Also it ends at Ravens Stadium, but, like, yawn.)
It’ll be a convenient race for me, too, since my parents live just outside Baltimore and I can crash with them for ease of commute. Uber-ing in FTW.
I can’t claim not to be a bit apprehensive about taking on a brand new course, but hey, I can do it, right? Right??? ANSWER ME.
Now for a 15 miler, a 17 miler, a 20 miler, new sneakers, fuel… Marathon #8, here we come.
Right???????????
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