My Tier Races

I'm 32.  I have 17-18 years to run a half marathon in all fifty states.  If I include Washington DC, I have 51 races to run.  Divide by 17, I get a clean easy number of 3 per year, which seems pretty reasonable.

I'm the type of guy that likes to have a plan.  I want to know which races I'm going to run.  I want to already have the dates set aside.  I want the order of how I do my races to make a little bit of sense.

To help with that, I decided to break the 50 states (and DC) and assign them to tiers of 1, 2, or 3.  Tier 1 races are in my opinion marquee or bucket-list type races that I absolutely want to do.  If the race isn't ideal, maybe the location may be ideal, which would put it in the tier 1 category.  Tiers 2 and 3 have good races as well, but maybe I'm not as psyched to run them or they are in a state that isn't overly interesting.

The intent is to run a Tier 1, 2, and 3 race every year.  By doing things this way, I ensure that I don't front-load my race list with all of the fun runs and potentially put myself in a situation where I look at the races remaining and not have as much interest.  

As I build out my schedule, I'm trying to front-load races and locations that won't make my wife jealous.  I have two young kids, both under 2 years old.  Quite frankly, it's too difficult to try and attempt travel with them.  However, they will get older, they will be easier to travel with, and my wife will get to join me on all my travel exploits as she loves to travel and see new places as much as I do.  Maybe she'll even train up and do some racing of her own!  Either way, these are the tiers and the associated states listed with them.

Tier 1:

Alaska

California

Colorado

DC

Florida 

Hawaii

Illinois

Indiana

Louisiana

Massachusetts

Michigan

Nevada

New York

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Texas

Washington

Tier 2:

Arizona

Connecticut

Georgia

Kentucky

Maryland

Missouri

New Jersey

New Mexico

North Carolina

Ohio

Oklahoma

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Tennessee

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Tier 3:

Alabama

Arkansas

Delaware

Idaho

Iowa

Kansas

Maine

Minnesota

Mississippi

Montana

Nebraska

New Hampshire

North Dakota

South Dakota

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

I likely won't change the order of my tiers, although I'm sure I could gather feedback and be told that certain states belong in other tiers.  It's just my opinion that helps me order these things anyway.  I've looked at some races in some tier 3 states that I'm quite excited about!  I'll eventually fill out my plan in some other blog post.