This will serve as a record of just how stupid a Hoosier can be, from today forward I'm going to start blogging of what I'm doing to train first for the Indianapolis Mini Marathon and then for the Ascent which is a half marathon up Barr Trail on Pikes Peak, why? I'm not sure but from the first time I saw Pikes Peak I wanted to climb it, which is really not too big of deal as thousands of people have done it so I thought why not enter the race and just run up it, so that's what I'm going to do, partly just because the mountain is there but mostly because its something I have decided should be on my bucket list because it will be a true test of what I'm made of and a true accomplishment if I can complete it.

I'm not sure of how much I will write here but I will try to do it enough to have a record of what it's going to take for me to get from the cornfield to the summit

Step 1: Well maybe step 3 or 4 or 6 I dunno but my first real step was that I had to qualify for the Ascent, it's probably for the best but they wont just let you show up and say you can do it you have to prove that your capable of at least having a clue of what you getting into, by among other things being able to run a 1/2 marathon in under 2 hrs 30 min which I did during my first Indy Mini Marathon attempt last year with a 2h 11 min finish 

Step 2: Last year I trained myself for the Mini and since it was my first race I didn't feel I did too bad of a job  but I really didn't and don't know what I'm doing and as a result I was injured quite a bit last year, this year I'm going to train for it with a group,   (TNT) Trained in Terre Haute. I can't check this one off yet but I have signed up for the program and am eager to start

Step 3: Start training for TNT so that I'm not killing myself in January, check, I've been doing that since the first week of December and am not doing too bad, below is where I've been this month and where I'm at today

Step 4: Will be to get entered in the race, which will be the first thing I'm a little worried about as they only accept 1800 runners for the Ascent, there have been some years that the race sells out pretty quick (see below from their website) I will be in wave 2

"Entry Status
General Registration:
Ascent Wave 1 - filled in 3.75 months vs 4.25 in '10, 4.5 in '09 and 4.25 in '08
Ascent Wave 2 - filled in 5.5 wks vs 9.5 days in '10, 3.3 wks in '09 and 7.7 wks in '08
Marathon Field 1 - filled in 1h39 vs 45mins in '10, 1 day 10h in '09 and 26 mins in '08
Marathon Field 2 - filled in 17 hours vs 5.25 hours in '10, 5 days in '09 and 50 mins in '08"


They have not set the registration dates yet so I have to make sure I don't miss it

In my next post I will talk about some of my strategy and what I think I'm going to need to do to get there