My next marathon (oh, yeah!)

Since being here in Nebraska City and rediscovering the joys of running in warm temps, my next goal is a marathon in warm temps.

A getaway during the cold winter months, when the chill refuses to rise above 10 degrees and it's dark and brutal and I'm so damned sick of chopping ice off my windshield in the morning and freezing my butt off each time I go outside; a getaway during such a time would be a small piece of heaven.

A marathon would be even better.

Best yet, this marathon:

This takes place near my old stomping grounds of Flagstaff, just a few hours south. It ends in Apache Junction, a cool place. Actually except for the politics, which I totally don't support, there isn't much about Arizona that I dislike.

I am SO eager to register for this marathon, but first MM has to check with his boss to make sure he can get the time off.

Please MM's boss, please grant MM the time off to come and run with me. I need him as my pacer. I also need him to fly with me so that we can use my companion fare and divy up the savings.

Hopefully I'll be registering, my Visa card clutched in my oh-so-eager hand, by tomorrow evening.

It's so much fun to plan a race, isn't it? So much more than the actual race which, face it, hurts like crap a good part of the time and especially the end. The planning and training are the allure, at least for me, since I don't enjoy running when there are a lot of people around me, which pretty much rules out most races. But this is a small event with a small-time feel, a race that should satisfy this introverted Alaskan's needs for a homey run in the sun-filled mountains around Phoenix.

And when we're finished, we're zooming off to here:

Sedona!

Okay, MM doesn't know we're zooming off to Sedona yet but I'm sure he'll enjoy the vacation I'm mapping out for both of us.

Once, and this is a true story, when I first moved to Alaska with another man (most women move to Alaska because of a man; that's just the way it is), we lived with another couple and the woman mapped their weekend to the hour: 10 a.m.-noon, tennis; noon-1 p.m., lunch, 2 p.m.-4 p.m., walk the dogs, 4-5 p.m., grocery shopping, etc. I wasn't in the least bit surprised when they later divorced.

I'm too lazy to schedule our vacation hour-to-hour. I just wanna see Sedona again. I love the red rocks and the energy and the hippie-healing-New-Age vibe and the smell of the ground. The first time I ever hiked down inside Oak Creek Canyon, I was so excited that I licked the rocks.

If the Lost Dutchman Marathon doesn't work, we will resort to another choice (Catalina? Red Rock?) working around my novel publication date and MM's work meetings schedule. I wanted to do the Sedona Marathon but alas, it falls smack before my novel date and it seems there are publicity things I must attend to.

Anyone else doing a spring marathon in a sunny location?