So as some of you may have recently seen, the Fitness festival decided yesterday that they were going to discontinue the Marathon event as part of their festivities. Unfortunately, Madison also decided to move their Marathon to spring of next year. Therefore, my plans for running a marathon are up in the air. Upon further evaluation, I think I will still run the Half Marathon in La Crosse and use it as a midway point in my training in preparation for either the Chicago Marathon or the Madison Marathon, both of which take place in the fall.
 
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The decision was made, I Griffith MacDonald, am going to attempt to run 26.2 miles without dying or suffering serious injury. So now that I have made the decision, what next? I figured, I should probably decide on the race I am going to run before I get ahead of myself. This part was relatively easy. Having run a half-marathon two years ago in the area, I decided to run the full Marathon sponsored by the same Festival. On May 6th, 2013, I will be running the La Crosse Fitness Festival Marathon. 
   Its amazing how when you put a date on it things become way more real. In the midst of my excitement for a race that's still almost half a year away, I made an impulse buy on a Timex GPS watch to track the distance I will be running during my training. Due to the maze of back alleys and cheese related street names that you find in a Wisconsin town, I quickly became frustrated during my half marathon training with how hard it was to plan out and run with directions in order to achieve a certain distance. With my brand new watch, recommended to me by good old Amazon, I can run in what ever direction I please without concern for street names or directions. Upon sharing this with my mom, she asked, 
"How are you gonna keep yourself from getting lost?" 
"Well Mom, I hadn't really thought about that. I guess ill just go with the flow."
I feel like that is going to be the motto for my entire race training. "Go with the flow." It is nearly impossible to sit down and plan out every day of training until May and then expect myself to be able to keep up with that exact schedule. In fact, I am not quite sure how many miles I can even run at this point in time. Currently, I am about halfway through the rigorous Insanity workout and am finding my overall endurance and flexibility increasing every day. However, I have absolutely no clue how that is going to translate into my abilities on the ol' dusty trail. The overall plan is to start working runs into my Insanity workout schedule and, as I near the end, phase out my Insanity workout completely. I'm hoping to go for my first run sometime next week and get a better estimate on my overall starting endurance level then.  

 
   Everyone has a bucket list. Well, let me rephrase that, Everyone should have a bucket list. Whether its wanting to skydive or traveling across the country, we as human beings have ambitions and dreams. Early this week, I came to a realization, I wanted to do something crazy. Now, when people think of a college kid and crazy, its usually crazy parties and flashbacks to the infamous movie "Animal House." However this isn't exactly what I had in mind. But, before we keep going, let me give you a little background on myself.
    My name is Griffith MacDonald and I am a Junior at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. I am just starting my third year of school and am a Finance and Insurance major. I am also entering my second year as a Resident Assistant (RA) so suffice it  to say that I don't have a lot of free time on my hands. Upon entering my third year of college, the luster that was the College experience has begun to wear off. Classes, are getting more difficult and aspects of my job have become repetitive in nature. So I took sometime to reflect on my past two years and what I was looking to get out of the coming one. The only thing that came to mind is that I want a new experience. So, upon reviewing my bucket list and coming to grips that a trip to the Amazon was probably not the most financially feasible option at this point in my life, I settled on number three on my list. I, Griffith MacDonald, am going to run a Marathon.
   Now I know what a lot of you are thinking, why the hell would anybody willingly volunteer to participate in something that requires so much......running? A part of me would not disagree with this initial reaction. My freshman year of College, I ran in the La Crosse Fitness Festival Half Marathon. And, although I despise running, finishing was one of the most exciting things i have ever experienced in my entire life. After that day I have always wanted to complete a full and, lets be honest, I am not getting any younger.
  The point of this blog is not to show the perfect training program for a successful marathon because I am going to be frank, I have never considered myself a runner. My goal is to create a way to express my thoughts and experiences through a medium while, at the same time, providing me with a way to keep record of my journey. The things I express on here may be funny, serious, or just personal and I am excited to embark on this journey. I hope to keep a semi up to date log of my running distances and times along with providing blog posts once or twice a week. So with that, strap your seat belts on folks because the roller coaster is about to begin!