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Early morning and I ended up watching YouTube clips from various races. As I was preparing to sign up for the Monumental Half Marathon in Indianapolis and they had a YouTube link on their website, where after watching some of their clips YouTube had some recommendations.

I am still very new to running and I still consider myself a rookie, just because I have been running for less than a year (10 months), but this morning I got a definite confirmation of the fact that I have been bitten by the running bug. Actually my condition seems to be so serious, that I think now I am addicted to running. I guess I rather have this kind of addiction than any other…

This addiction materialized this morning pretty significantly. Today is my rest day, so running. Though I still woke up at my regular 5AM and I was reading about races, looked through race course maps, then ended up on YouTube watching clips from various races. Then I found this amazing clip. If you are not a runner yet, I think now you want to become one. If you were thinking about running, then now you will out to run. If you are a runner already who never planned to run a full marathon then now you will want to run one. If you are a rookie runner, just like me, who was planning to run a full marathon sometime in the future, then now you will want to run this race now. Actually you will have to wait until October 2013, but now you are definitely planning to be there. Just like me: as now I definitely plan to be there…

Here is the clip that made me want to get up from my chair, put on my running shoes and just run a few miles (if the clip would not load, here is the link):

This is a great clip, isn’t it?

Funny, how I just keep learning about new races from various sources all the time. Sometimes, there a runner’s blog refers to a race he/she is following, sometimes there a website that pops up in the search engine, sometimes there is a recommendation among the search results (probably by now the Google servers are tired of the running related searching from my IP address…). Sometimes one race promotes another. There are lots of great sources.

So last weekend I was reading a blog post at Athlete in Me about cheering for the participants of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. I went to the race website and got stuck there watching their live feed showing thousands of runners crossing the finish line. That is when I first thought I want to participate on this race next year. But then I thought not yet. Originally I planned 2013 to get stronger and stronger running more Half Marathons and be able to complete a Half Marathon at a strong pace (targeting 1:40). Considering that I have one year to prepare, I set my goal to run this race in 4 hours.

Any hesitation I had this morning if I want to participate on this race or not is gone by now. It was gone in the moment I realized, that my feet were moving as I was sitting in the chair and I was watching this movie clip. Reading Dan’s great blog post with his Reflections on the Chicago Marathon just makes me want to invent a time machine, go back in time, start running years ago and participate on more and more events.

In the meantime, for anyone who is searching for some inspiration or simply for races to participate on, here are some great sources that can help you get going.

A few blogs to start with:

Dan’s Marathon (http://dans-marathon.com/)

Athlete in Me (http://athleteinme.wordpress.com/)

Dev on Running (http://devonrunning.tumblr.com/)

Websites to search for races:

Don’t forget, that Google is your friend… 🙂

Runner’s World (http://www.runnersworld.com/)

Half Marathon Club (http://www.halfmarathonclub.com/)

Active.com (https://www.active.com/)

Some of these links are pointing to blogs that can help you get an idea about how great feeling it is to run. Some others are websites where you can search races. If you have any other recommendation as a starting point for fellow rookie runners, please post it here.

Happy running!