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My next carrot- a Marathon! Hartford or NYC?

Laura BeckerLaura Becker
in Races & Places 🏁⛺

Background: I just raced IMLP, which was my first IM.  I am going through the “Post Ironman Depression Syndrome” and looking for my new focus, or “carrot” if you will. I decided that I want to race my first stand alone marathon. I have done several HMs, but never a full marathon.  Logistically I have to participate in a somewhat local marathon because I cannot take more than a day off of school to travel.  I narrowed down my choices to the Hartford Marathon (15 minutes from my house) or the NYC marathon (2 hours). 

Here’s my thoughts- The Hartford Marathon is close, and I know several friends participating.  It’s a great event (I was bike support for the course last year).  However, the course would not be my first choice to run. Not much to look at and pretty boring. I don’t know much about the NYC marathon course except it goes through several boroughs and crosses several bridges.  Sounds really exciting.

But besides that small stuff- here is what it truly comes down to.  The Hartford Marathon would be a sign up and go. In order to do the NYC marathon- I would have to fundraise for a charity.  Now, you may not know me but I am big into volunteering and doing what I can for charities, so in my mind this would be great.  I looked into what charities were still looking for teammates and found one and placed a call.  The founder and I talked for 45 minutes and I was pretty much crying listening to some of the stories (yes- I am emotional).  And he said whatever I raise a portion would go to a local charity of my choice that helps kids (which is perfect because I try to be as active as I can in a local charity helping kids with cancer at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center). But there is a $3,000 fundraising “requirement”.  Which does have me worry a bit that I will not make the requirement or that I will have the “did you make your quota yet??” hanging over my head as I train. I would love to raise money to help and would absolutely do my best. But I don’t know if I know that many people.  Also- I feel like this would give more meaning to my run.

Basically, I would love to hear anyone’s experience with either of these marathons. And if anyone has fundraised for a marathon before- did you find it challenging to get donations? And I am open to ALL comments and ideas as I have been dwelling over this for days!!!!

Thanks team!!

Comments

  • cdkayakcdkayak
    Does the charity you were talking with have any fund raising support the way MMRF did for their charity racers in IMLP? Something like that would probably be helpful to get the ball rolling. Even if they were able to point you in a few directions to help set up a web presence.
  • Laura BeckerLaura Becker

    Hey Chris!! The charity is called Tri-ing for Kids (a 501c3 non for profit) and they said they will help set up website , but it is a much smaller foundation than MMRF.  But the web connection is a huge part...good point!

  • cdkayakcdkayak
    That's a good start since it gives you an official place to point people for information. One thing I've seen friends do when fundraising is to make sure a link to their fundraising page is on the footer of their email, forum posts, FB home page etc... image Get as much exposure as possible.

    Best of luck & keep us up to date!

    On a side note, I've been toying with my first open marathon as well. I'm looking at the Mnt. Desert Island marathon in Acadia.
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