In Which Jenn’s 15th Marathon Continues To Give Chase

The 2020 Wilmington Marathon was supposed to be my fifteenth marathon. Scheduled for March, it was cancelled, my first COVID race casualty.

So then the 2021 Walt Disney World Marathon was in position to become my fifteenth marathon. Painfully but understandably, it was cancelled, alongside the Princess Half and Star Wars Half weekends.

Which brought me back around to the 2021 Wilmington Marathon, where my deferred registration had landed after last year’s cancellation. I’d imagine the race organizers thought they’d be free and clear by February 2021. Alas and alack.

Still, it’s run by the same organizers who safely put together the Battleship Half Marathon last November, and all their pre-race communications suggested that while the course might be modified the race would go on.

That is, up until two days ago, at which point it was announced that the race had been postponed – to April 17.

This as you may recognize is smack dab in the middle of the would-be Star Wars Rival Weekend races at Walt Disney World. As mentioned above, runDisney has already cancelled that race, BUT I hadn’t cancelled my WDW trip. My race is now on day two of my WDW vacation. Whee!

FIFTEENTH MARATHON WHY WON’T YOU LET ME RUN YOU???

Luckily my WDW travel buddy has been very kind and accommodating, and since there’s no official event date to make anymore we’ve agreed to push the trip back a day or two so I can run the dang race. Whew. And of course this is better anyway, as by April more people should be vaccinated and there’ll be much less risk.

Against all odds, I am hopeful. I am hopeful that Biden’s aggressive vaccination plan will work out. I’m hopefully we’ll all be vaccinated soon. I’m hopeful people will stop getting sick, we can all safely race and travel again, and I can go back to getting anxious over normal things, like whether or not I’ll wake up in time for my races.

One of these days I’m gonna run my fifteenth marathon – and I’m hopeful it’ll be soon!

Don’t forget, you can follow FRoA on Twitter @fairestrunofall and on Instagram @fairestrunofall. If you have any questions or thoughts, leave a comment or email fairestrunofall@gmail.com. See ya real soon!