My registration for my first marathon is in. Today I signed up for the Chicago Marathon on October 7th. I also booked and paid for the hotel. My family and I will be staying at the Essex Inn which is 0.25 miles from the start and finish.

My original plan was to run the Dallas marathon in December, but as I started getting closer to planning my marathon training, I decided on the Chicago marathon for the following reasons:

• I wanted a flat course. The Dallas marathon is a net zero-elevation course, but it still has some hills. After my experience in a recent 10K with some hills, I would rather run on a flat course for now.

• Chicago is a huge marathon and I figured being at a bigger even with more spectators would help me through my first marathon.

• I’m started to get anxious about actually starting my marathon training plan and now I get to start 2 months earlier.

I’m hoping to be able to run it under 4 hours, but I’ll work out a target time as my training progresses.

This is the first major step on the road to the Boston Marathon!