We’re just over a year away from the 2014 NYC Marathon. And while Carl and I do not have acceptance letters in our hot little hands just yet, we are expecting them come April. You see, we’ve been denied entry through the lottery system for three years in a row now (2011, 2012 and 2013). According to NYC Marathon rules, if a person is denied lottery entry three years in a row, she or he can expect guaranteed entry the fourth year, which for us, is 2014.

We’re lucky. 2014 will be the last year in which this occurs, as they’ve discontinued that automatic entry program. But over the past three years we’ve been assured we’ll gain entry in 2014, and the official website even refers to it (see bullet #5). So we’re cautiously optimistic that come November 2, 2014, we’ll be at the Staten Island start line of the NYC Marathon! Hot damn, we’ve got work to do…But hey, we’ve already started!

Running for NYC a year in advance!

My 7 mile run last weekend was dedicated to the over 50,000 (!) runners of the 2013 ING NYC Marathon, with fingers crossed that we’re in next year.

I’ve booked hotel rooms at the Wellington in Midtown Manhattan, less than a mile walking distance from the finish line.

And I’ve already begun looking at training programs, which we won’t officially start until the end of June, 2014. Hal Higdon‘s Intermediate 2 program looks pretty rough, with run days scheduled for 5 days per week (three week days and both weekend days), averaging nearly 36 miles per week for 18 weeks up to and including the marathon. The weekly mileage in this program tops out at 50 miles in weeks 11, 13, and 15.

Holy crap.

That’s a lot of miles, and while I want to train hard for this marathon, I also want to train well, and remain injury-free. So we’ll likely modify this program to fall somewhere in between Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2.

In the meantime, between now and when the hard-core training starts next June, I’m going to begin, again, to think of myself as an athlete. That sounds goofball, even to me, but often when you see yourself as something, you can begin to internalize it. This will bring with it better eating and sleeping habits, which translate into better training runs, which (hopefully) will translate into a better NYC Marathon experience!

A friend told me yesterday to “train hard, it’s filled with hills [but] it is one of the most interesting and scenic marathons to run.”

I’m on it.