How is it October already!?!

I cannot believe how fast the year is going by.  I'm already on week 6 of Marathon training.  And I have a bunch of fun plans for the Fall that seemed so distant and now they've crept up on me and I'm feeling unprepared.  In reality, it's all fine and I'm sure things will fall into place but I've just done less research and planning then I'm used to.

First, this weekend is the Nationwide Children's Hospital Columbus Half Marathon.  I'm so excited for this one because I'm running it with a bunch of childhood friends and there will be a bunch of family spectating.  Two of us have run half marathons before and it will be my friend's first full marathon.  It will be a first half marathon for the others.  But I haven't figured out much about transportation, logistics, food, etc.  Thankfully, my parents live in Columbus and will drive me around a bit, and one of my friends lives right near the start/finish and has offered his apartment for the group to use before and after.

Me in the middle with 2 of the friends running their first half this weekend

And then yesterday, Mike reminded me it's a month before we leave for our big Fall vacation!  This has been in the plans for a while as it's my 40th birthday celebration :)  We're going to Disneyland and I'm doing the Infinity Gauntlet challenge. And then after that, we're going to Maui for a week.  I'm really looking forward to the time to relax in Hawaii and I'm sure I'll need it even more after a weekend at Disneyland.  We've booked hotels and stuff and I've done some general research but we haven't made too many specific plans yet.  This may be a vacation where we play things by ear and have less structure than usual. 

From our last trip to Disneyland, back before I had even started running

And of course, then we're into the holidays and we still haven't done anything to prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I'm sure that will be here before we know it.  And then right after that is the trip to Disney World for the marathon in January. So with all the trips and with marathon training, I'm sure I'll continue to feel behind for the rest of the year.  But at least it's all for good reasons!  And at least training is going pretty well.  I definitely won't feel untrained for the half marathons.  I did 12 miles two weeks ago so should be trained up for this weekend's half.  And I'll have done a 16 mile long run before the Avengers half so I should be ready for that one as well.