Fall Marathon Frustration!

When asked to describe characteristics about me, I would think any of my friends would include on that list the fact that I am a planner. 

I like to know what I'm doing and when, and when I make plans, I can be counted on to follow through.  I'm not saying I always have a plan, there are plenty of weeknights like last night where I come home from work, we eat dinner at home and watch tv, and then go next door to visit with our neighbors, or just go to bed.  But there are also many nights with plans.  Tonight, a social run followed by dinner with running buddies. 

But in terms of long term plans, I'm also very good about those.  When something is important to me, it gets put on the calendar, and I plan around it going forward.

Well, as you know, I am planning to use 100% of my work vacation days (and likely a few personal days) in October and November for our trip to China. 

The rough plan is to fly to Beijing, be there for a couple days to explore, run the marathon, then head out on travels, going to Xi'an, Chongqing, Yichang, and then Shanghai. 

After Shanghai, we figured we would probably fly straight to Chicago and spend a few days in Chicago and Milwaukee for my brother's early November wedding.  Then we'd fly home from there. 

But if the marathon was a bit earlier, we may fly directly home from Shanghai (well, not direct of course, since there are no such flights, but as close as we can), and then just fly up to Milwaukee or Chicago the following weekend for the wedding. 

Either way, lovely plan. 

But then lately, we've been seeing in the WSJ the fares to go to China on Emirate.  Not too expensive.  And we'd possibly be able to do a few days layover in Dubai, which is also on our list of places to go.  Sweet! 

Yesterday, hubby spent several hours tinkering with searches, routes, dates, etc.  Everything in the WSJ about it seems to be true -- competitive fares, decent routes. 

Definitely seems like we could layover in Dubai at the end of the trip and then get back to Milwaukee for the wedding.

Part of me wants to just buy the tickets now.  Even though I know what a pain it is when you have international travel involving multiple flights booked many months in advance -- it seems like once a week, you get some email about a change to your itinerary.  Sometimes it's just the flight number.  Sometimes arrival or departure time changes by a few minutes.  Sometimes it's the technical operator of the flight.  But dozens and dozens of emails "changing" that itinerary. 

But like I said, part of me just wants it all booked.  I can deal with reading the changes every week. 

But I can't book tickets because ... I STILL don't know when the Beijing Marathon will be!!!

Yes, in all likelihood less than 8 months before the marathon, and they haven't announced the date yet.  WTF?  Don't they know people kind of like to plan marathons many, many months in advance.  Most people need at least 4 months to train, and since many good marathons fill up quickly, most runners lock in the one they want to run as soon as they can. 

I'm sure it will either be Oct. 14 or Oct. 21, but it's kind of critical to know which. 

I have been checking the website, boldly announcing the race on Oct. 16, 2011, for months now.  I've sent a few emails to the "contact" email address, and received an automated response in Chinese indicating my inquiry has been received.  But no response.  I go to the website at least once a week to look for the 2012 date.  Nada. 

This week, there is finally a countdown of days posted (227), and a cool logo that says 2012 (no actual date, but at least indicates they're planning to hold a 2012 event), and this makes me 90% certain I know the date (Oct. 14), but I'm reluctant to completely rely on that, particularly when the two other sites that list the date aren't official sites (but both didn't have any date listed as of last week, so maybe there's an official announcement only in Chinese?).  Why won't they just announce it already and put up a registration link??!!  Or at least publish the date so we can book travel??

Sometimes I wish everyone liked calendars and planning as much as me. 

The funny thing is though, for my fall 2013 marathon (Berlin), not only have they already announced the date for Sept. 2013, they've announced when registration opens for the 2013 race (in October 2012).  Beijing still doesn't have the date clear, let alone the registration date, and race day is about 7.5 months away...