Travel and a Race Plan

I'm off to New Mexico today for work.  The cool thing is that I'm going back to the exact hotel where I stayed when I did the Bataan Memorial Death March Marathon -- that was the one where I had to carry the military weight pack for the duration. 

And in some other exciting news, I'm going to do that race again in March 2014! 

But it won't be the same this time.  A.) I'm not doing the marathon, I'll be doing the other option (14 miles).  B.) I won't be carrying a pack.  C.) I'm planning to walk the entire thing, hopefully meeting some vets.  D.) My husband is going with me, and also planning to walk the 14 miles!

I wasn't planning to do this race again, but I met a few awesome people when I did it and they go every year.  And more convincing than anything, this will be the 25th anniversary of the memorial march and probably the last year there will be survivors there to tell their stories. 

Hearing Bataan Death March survivors tell their stories was one of the coolest things that I've experienced in the last decade or so, and I knew when I was there that my husband would love it too -- I won't say he likes WWII history as much as I do, but he does love military history in general (a match made in heaven!).

So it's officially on the calendar. 

But when I did this race, while the significance was overwhelming, I felt like it took quite a toll on me physically.  It was the only marathon I've ever won, so my many months of training with a weight vest paid off, but I felt like I lost a lot of cardio fitness because I was so much slower while carrying 40+ pounds of weight.  It took forever to get back to running at my pre-weight-vest training pace.  When I first ran without the pack, I thought I'd be flying, going insanely fast.  And I 100% thought I was, but the garmin doesn't lie (well, it does occasionally, but not for miles on end usually...).  While I felt like I was on the verge of breaking a 4 minute mile, instead I was just chugging along at a pace slower than I'd run in years. 

At my age, I don't feel like I can afford to spend a year training with weight again and then coming back from it -- well, I suppose I could, but since I've done it once (and had an amazing experience), I don't feel a need to replicate it. 

I'm not sure how long I'll be in New Mexico this week -- if it goes very well or very poorly, I expect I'll be home tomorrow.  But if we're making average progress settling the case, I may be there for a couple days.  Ugh.  Once again, I'm just wishing for two consecutive unremarkable weeks at home, with my normal diet and exercise routine.  Looks like it won't be this week (or next I guess, with Thanksgiving).