Olympic Marathon Trials (and other races I'm not doing)

Today's the US Olympic Marathon Trials (televised locally at 2 PM on KSTP, I think, which means I have to sandwich my own run between the current 9 degrees and the 30 at 2 o'clock) and a number of Minnesotans are running, a few with real chances of making the team.

My predictions for the team: Ryan Hall, Nick Arcinaga, Jason Lehmkuhle with Meb Keflezighi as alternate. For the women: Kara Goucher, Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Davila with Deena Kastor as alternate.

I've been asked - a lot - about what races I'm planning for this year, this spring and even this month. I know... the blog's title is getting to become a misnomer, as I'm not racing much. I need to get in shape first and no one but me seems to realize just how far I have to go to get there. Measuring my progress by what I think I could do in a 5K race, I was at 21:54 two weeks ago, 21:10 last week, about 20:39 this week (I need today's and tomorrow's runs to get the number); that's improvement, but I wouldn't consider racing until I was in the 18 minute range. That won't be until April at the earliest. I picked out what race I thought might be my first one of the year and just found out that, while a certified course, it's not considered record-quality - unless the race has a new course that hasn't been listed yet by the usatf (which means I have to contact the race director...). And you thought running was just putting one foot in front of the other!

That race also happens to conflict with an ultra at which I said I'd volunteer.

So, probably no racing for me until late April and then probably nothing you've heard of or care about.

Added: One minute after I posted, the results came out in the trials! I'll post them in the comments, so you can watch without the spoiler.