Running for Your Life: The Race Next Taken

It might be a “lame” strategy but …

If I’m going to qualify to run in the New York City Marathon it’s the most reasonable one.

As in, I’m going to train for a marathon but it ain’t going to be this year.

Or the next.

But the next one: 2020.

That is if they are still running the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, Pa.

That October I’ll be 65, and the race is usually just after my birthday on the fifth.

At 65, I’ll be able to qualify for NYC with a minimum time of 3:45 (or 4:10 for Boston). If I do so, then I would run New York for the first time (if I manage the faster pace) or Boston for the second time, if I come in at 4:10 or under.

So that would have me running back to back marathons in ’20 and ’21.

In the meantime, I’ll be doing half and half. Half in 2018 and a half in 2019. The Bay Ridge one in Brooklyn, under the Verrazano Bridge, is Saturday, Oct. 6, this year. That will suit me just fine.

And so it goes. Training for the little ones – and doing my damnedest to keep this body (joints, man!) in race-pacing trim.

Next: Running for Your Life: Enter ‘The Gateway’