Tuesday is a big day.

Not just because the numbers are three odd numbers in a row, although I guess that’s kinda cool, too.

^Ignore that. I apparently have no idea what date or year it is.

No, on Tuesday, I start training for my third marathon, the Marine Corps Marathon.

It’s in D.C., where I formed all my bad habits, so I’m excited for another race there to show the city I’m doing better without it. Last year, I surprised my friend Lindsay and went to spectate Marine Corps, and now she’s back on the East Coast (yay, minus not having a friend to visit in Hawaii) and living outside of D.C. and will be able to spectate me running the race!

I’m also excited…

…because I’m participating in the Runner’s World Challenge! Back in May, Tina, Anne and I had an awesome meeting with the communications director for Runner’s World, and I mentioned I was running Marine Corps. He asked if I’d want to try out the challenge in exchange for blogging about it.

I don’t know if I’ve ever said yes so quickly! Runner’s World wanted to work with me, who could barely run a mile just a little over three years ago? Well, okay. I was seriously flattered and excited.

It includes:

• a training plan (I chose the break 4:00 one, gulp)
• access to their training log software, which I’m just starting to play with now, but lets you upload your Garmin info to and access from your iPhone. The access from iPhone part is cool, since in years past, I uploaded my entire schedule into my Google Calendar, so I like the access-from-smartphone part. There’s also areas to input stuff like weight and nutrition, and I’m going to try to keep up with those but know the nutrition-logging will be hard to keep up with.
• motivational emails from Bart Yasso (although we’re already buddies)
• a t-shirt and book
• access to private forums

And then some awesome race-weekend stuff:

• strategy session and shakeout run with Bart Yasso
• pre/post-race private tent access (after Disney Princess, I can say this is super-clutch)

One of my New Balance contacts tried and loved the program for Big Sur, so I’m really really excited to try out all these tools and have access to their editors through this program for the next few months.

Let’s talk marathon: are you doing one this fall? If so, which one? Do you have an aggressive time goal, too?

NYC runners: Last year, I started a Facebook group for those training for the NYC Marathon. It became an awesome way to connect with other runners who were also marathon training and learn about cool area races going on that fit in well with NYCM training plans. Since I don’t want to leave my own group…let’s say that it’s for NYC runners training for marathons, okay? You can click on the link above to request membership. (I keep it private so the whole Internet doesn’t know where you’re going running if you don’t want them to.)

If you’re not training for a marathon, any big fitness goals you’re working on?