Back at it, in a manner of speaking (#portlandmarathon)

Greetings! It has been a solid year since my last post. Admit it, you noticed.

So my plan is to run the Portland Marathon in October 2014. This will be race #9 of my "10 Marathons to run before I die" list (assuming none of the 9 kill me before 10).

To recap:

1. Marine Corps (didn't die) 
2. New York City (survived)
3. Mayor's Midnight Sun, Anchorage, AK (made it)
4. Governor's Cup, Helena, MT (not dead yet)
5. Atlanta (beat a 70+ yo barefooted man running in blue jeans... barely)
6. Chicago (nipples died, I survived)
7. Houston (feet died, I survived)
8. Rouge Orleans Ultra Relay (in which our hero ate king cake and drank beer on a 126.2 mile journey from Baton Rouge to New Orleans... and did not perish)
9. Portland, I am hoping
10. Boston through the fundraising back door because I have no desire to actually qualify, or Antarctica, which is really expensive and sometimes unreliable. Could you imagine not making it to shore and running 26.2 miles around the deck of a ship? I would commit acts of piracy and mutiny and other scurrilous seagoing offenses.

I chose Portland for two reasons only:

A. I never run the same race twice - not being snooty. Running is such a mind game that I can't allow boring terrain mess with my head,

B. I have never been to Oregon. Shallow as it may seem, my other buck list besides marathons is to visit all 50 states. I have 9 to go (OR, NE, SD, ND, WI, IN, KY, IA & DE -- Delaware? How do you get to Delaware. Its like on the beaten path of nowhere). Oregon makes it 8.

Turns out that Portland is a great course with hills (I actually like hills) in perfect running weather conditions (cool, possibly cloudy), and the city is one of the hippest places in the US of A. Everybody wins!

Anyway, I have begun training. I should be up to mile 10 but have only completed mile 8 for the long run.

Will keep you posted. Literally. This is a blog.