And the marathon I'm running is.....

So, after much internal deliberation, I have decided which marathon I'm going to run in October 2014.

A couple weeks ago I posted about the three marathons I was considering: Denver, Chicago, and Lakefront (Milwaukee). I eliminated Denver pretty quickly. Then, I found out about the Twin Cities marathon in October (October 5), so my choice became Twin Cities, Chicago, and Lakefront.

I was really leaning towards Chicago until I found out about the high price (it's $100 more than Lakefront), and the insane demand (sold out in a matter of HOURS last year!). Around this same time I became really excited about the Twin Cities marathon. A little bit farther of a drive, but it's size (roughly 23,000) seemed to strike a perfect balance between the tiny Lakefront crowd (3,100) and the massive Chicago crowd (45,000). The online reviews for the TCM were glowing, too (although, to be fair, almost every marathon I've read reviews for mostly has very positive reviews). TCM would fulfill my desire to branch out and run somewhere new, and I would also have great crowd support and get to run in a big city.

So, my choice came down to Twin Cities Marathon, or Lakefront Marathon.

After a lot of thought, I have made my decision that on October 5, 2014 I am going to run the Lakefront Marathon here in Milwaukee.

I would run all three of them if I could because they all sound awesome, but this really came down to practical concerns. I weighed the pros of each marathon, and this is why I chose Lakefront:

1. Get to sleep in my own bed and don't have to travel
2. Low cost
3. More friends/coworkers around to celebrate with and cheer me on (in the Twin Cities I would only have one. I love ya Kate, but I'm sure you'd get sick of me hanging around)

These three things are what separate this marathon from the others. At the end of the day, as a first-time marathoner, these practical considerations won out over things like more crowd support and a more exciting course.

I'm sure I will miss the heightened excitement and camaraderie of the bigger city marathons. But, every decision has an opportunity cost. Hopefully, this is only my first of many marathons, and I will still get to experience TC, Chicago, and many other marathons in my future! I'm sure they will be even better when I can run them as a (slightly) more experience runner.

Registration opens for Lakefront in mid-January (I'm not gonna lie, the fact that their registration opens a month earlier than the others was a plus for me as well), and I'm counting down the days and ready to go! I can't wait for that feeling of being officially registered so the marathon can become real.

Until then, back to focusing on my other goals!

Thanks to all my runner friends for your continuing input and guidance :-) I hope you think I've made a good decision!