The 2013 Race Calendar Preparations Begin with OCD

I've been spending some time trying to mentally arrange my goals for the 2013 race season.  I've got one big race already set.  The rest are in various stages of planning. 

I sat down to figure out what my choices were for races around certain times of the year and it became a rather lengthy project.  What follows is an autobiographical account of how I (hopefully only temporarily) acquired OCD. 

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Let's say I want to run a marathon somewhere between February and April.  In fact, I actually do.  I pull up runningintheusa.com.  I have to pick a state.  I live in CT, so that's an obvious choice.  Now I have all the upcoming races in CT.  But I only want marathons in February, March, and April, so I have to limit the search to "Marathon" and we'll start with "February."  Nothing.  I switch to "March" and get nothing.  Then I switch to "April" and again get nothing.  The conclusion is that if I want to do a February to April marathon, travel is going to be required.  But where do I need to travel to?  Now I switch from CT to MA, RI, ME, VT, NH, NY, etc. 

Somewhere along that monotonous search, I decide that this is not conducive to finding a race without adding tons of frustration!  I have to keep switching states, months, race type, etc.  And once I find them, I need to switch back and forth to compare the times, locations, etc.  AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!  I'm going to rip my hair out!!

But how else do I look for races??

Bingo!  Let's take all the races in New England and compile them onto one single list so I can look at them all at one time instead of separated by state, month, or distance.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  I'll be able to quickly compare and decide on races.  I'll even list the races homepage, entry fee, and start time for a better comparison.  I am a genius!

I am an idiot!  Why did I think this would be easy?  Ok, it's not physical demanding, but it's mentally draining.  Let's break it down.

3 types of races (half mary, full mary, and ultra)
12 months in a year
7 states (ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI, and NY)

That's 252 web pages on runningintheusa.com I have to look through.  If they average one race per page, that's 252 race homepages I have to look through as well.  (It actually averaged 1.3 races per page)

Craziness!!  

But have no fear.  The list is complete!  I put in the man hours of fighting the desire to doze off and punched in the following totals...

185 half marathons
52 full marathons
72 ultra marathons and odd distance races


Now I have no excuse for not knowing which road races I want to do.

Next up...

2013 Triathlon Compiled List

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Questions
1.  Where do you go to look for races?

2.  What do you look for in a race?  Do you look for late/early start times, cheap entry fees, great scenery, high athlete rating, recommendations, size of the finisher's medal...?
The entry fee is always my first thought.  Beyond that, I like a later start time for road races, and uniqueness and personal recommendation come in a tie for third.

3.  How's your 2013 race calendar coming along?



Dream.  Believe.  Achieve.