Now that it's February, I took a moment to check out the 2013 calendar at www.coolrunning.com to start getting organized.
All I can say is, wow! Out of dozens and dozens of races already scheduled, exactly one is in a New Hampshire community that I've yet to run in: Whitefield!
Of course more will be scheduled, but gone are the days when I could choose from several places each weekend. Now, with nearly 140 communities under my belt, it's much harder to find someplace where I haven't run.
So this reinforces the idea that I need to ramp up my quest by visiting "non-race" towns and running a minimum 5K. If I do two back-to-back, that's 10K. So I could net quite a few.
One problem is distance. Even in a relatively small state such as New Hampshire, some of the northern communities are a three-hour drive from where I live.
For those, I'll probably go up in the evening, do a "double run," then spend the overnight. Next morning, I'll get up and do another "double" before heading home.
And because I'm supposed to be training for a trek up the summmit of Mount Kilimanjaro, that might lead to a more aggressive schedule than in recent years.
What's a reasonable goal? Well, I'm going to Kilimajaro in September, so by then I should have done...let's say 25 more towns. Ambitious, but do-able.
This month, my main opportunities will come on Saturdays in the next two weekends. (The last weekend of the month, I'm out of town.)
So if I get going and the weather cooperates, I could have conceivably colored in four new communities by the end of month.
And that would be a great start to 2013. So stay tuned!
