Marathon FOMO

For those who don't know, FOMO is defined as:

and I am suffering from a gigantic case of marathon FOMO. I would attribute 22% of this to the fact I received a 'Sorry' magazine in the Post from London Marathon. 31% has been caused by seeing so many others taper in prep for the 2014 Dublin Marathon (Michelle, John & Bernie to name a few). 10% is nostalgic, like I imagine child-birth, its been too long I've clearly forgotten the pain. The final 37% of my FOMO lies from something inside me, my desire to go the distance again and to beat only myself.

Its a NO from London

I had registered for the London Ballot back in April along with 125,000 others and to be honest, I wasn't really expecting to get a place but a part of me did hope I would. Imagine how brilliant it would be to get one of the Big Six (World Majors) under your belt. With London out of the picture and Tokyo, Boston, Chicago, Berlin and New York not even on the radar, I'm stumped. I had wanted Marathon #3 to be special.

For the past few weeks I've been toying with a few ideas. I could still secure a London place through a charity but most of these places require at least €2,000 to be fundraised for the charity. My other option is the Paris Marathon which takes place the weekend before London. This however kind of poses the same problems geographical and logistical problems as London as in, by the time you add in flights, accommodation etc, the thing ends up costing over €500.

That is when it hit me - the challenge of a marathon shouldn't be in its organisation, it should be in the training. 26.2 miles is 26.2 miles regardless of where you run them. Ok, I will admit while it would be epic to pass Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower, a mile is still a mile. For that reason I've made a decision about the glamorous location of Marathon #3 - but first, a quick flashback:

I didn't realise the importance of Marathon #1 at the time but on reflection I now understand exactly what it meant to me. You never get to run your first again and I'm so glad mine was everything I could have hoped. I loved following the online running forums, making up a colour coded training plan and clocking up the miles on the road.

Myself & Brad - the morning of the Dublin Marathon

Marathon #2 was more for me. I followed the same plan as before, but trained on my own, ran it on my own. I didn't know anyone else doing it. I finished one minute faster than Dublin (3 hours 51mins) but most definitely finished on empty. My legs cramped immediately across the finish line and I lay in a ditch at the side of the road crying while my poor mam & other half tried to help as best they could (By the way, them just being there was more than enough!).

Post Connemarathon

Marathon #3 is going to be about goals! I've signed up for the Tralee Marathon. Yep... Admittedly its not as sexy as Paris or as slick as London, this is the marathon I hope to run in under 3 hours 30 minutes, so does it matter where I do it? 

That means aiming to knock TWENTY ONE minutes off my previous best. 

Marathon #3 is TWENTY ONE weeks away (15th of March).

Better get to work...