Top 5 Races to Register For This Fall

I don’t think I have to point out that I’m not currently running. But that doesn’t mean I can’t wish I was running, and think about the races I would sign up for this fall if I was!

1. Pints to Pasta 10k, 9/7 – I’ll be out of town that weekend and couldn’t do it anyway, but a bunch of my friends do it every year, and you get beer and spaghetti at the end. Plus the first mile is straight downhill, so I feel more justified in going all out in the beginning like I always do but never should. 2. Warrior Dash, 9/6 + 9/7 – This one conflicts with Pints to Pasta, but this is a pretend race schedule anyway, so I can run conflicting pretend races if I want to. I did the Terrain Mud Run a few years ago and it left me itching to do another obstacle/adventure/mud run. And I want this hat: 3. Chicago Marathon, 10/12 – Considering I’m not running at all right now, there’s no way I’m in shape for a marathon. My primary motivation here is that I’ve always wanted to go to Chicago and now my business school BFF lives there. I think that doing contest prep for a bikini competition also reminds me of the long, tedious process of training for a marathon and reminds me of how badass it felt to run one, even though I ran kind of slow. If I ever do one again, it will be much faster, and it might be in Chicago – just not this October.

4. ORRC Turkey Trot, 11/27 – This Turkey Trot starts at the Oregon Zoo, runs down the road through Washington Park to the rose gardens, and then back up and finishes in the zoo.  pretty cool run, and I just remember feeling really good the one time I did it a few years ago. It was that temperature where you’re freezing when you’re standing outside before the run, and then feel awesome once you start going. And running through the zoo at the very end reminded me of when I used to work there, and got to walk around by myself in the early morning before it opened. I didn’t love working at the zoo, but I did love that.

5. Red Lizard Stumptown Cross, Fall – These races happen every couple weeks throughout the fall. At least most years they do, I assume it’s happening again. These are awesome because they’re cheap compared to normal races these days, and they make you feel like you’re in high school or college or whenever it was that you were on a cross-country team, again. Maybe I’ll be able to get in on one of the last ones.

Nothing like having actual bales of hay to jump over to make it feel like a real xc meet

If anybody’s doing any of these races let me know, and maybe I’ll show up and take unflattering pictures of you and be super jealous of you, saying things like, “I definitely would have beat you if I was able to run.” Seriously.