One Last Shot at a December Half-Marathon

Now it's getting to the end of December and I am wondering whether I couldn't fit in one half-marathon run anyway, in spite of the fact that I missed that Jacksonville race on December 18. No, it wouldn't be an official, public race. And no, I wouldn't "get" to spend forty-plus dollars for the privilege of running in it: it would be free. I would simply step out of my front door and run my own personally designed half-marathon course around my neighborhood (and some adjacent locations) as I have done many times in the past. So that is what I am thinking of doing...

Saturday, December 31, as far as my employer is concerned, is my official "New Years Day" holiday. And so I am off from work and free to stretch out a nice, long run into the afternoon. If I am to accomplish this run and continue my string of "one half-marathon per month", it will be that day...or no day. Actually, it's pretty nice that my work situation gives me this one last opportunity: a heavy December work load was the primary reason I wasn't able to run that Jacksonville half-marathon earlier this month.

I suppose that it was inevitable, anyway, that I would live through months without the opportunity to run public half-marathon races. From April through October, this event is pretty much closed off to me, due to the fact that I live in generally-hot Florida and they just don't schedule long-distance running events for most of the year. And I have a job and don't have the luxury of just hopping on a plane whenever I get the whim to run in a race more remote (although I think that would be a cool thing to try at least once). So, after the more local events are through in March, I'll either have to run my own private half-marathons or tone down my running to a shorter distance.