The first domino in my 2026 race calendar has fallen into place.

I remembered earlier this week that the NYC Half lottery results came very quickly after the lottery closed.

I couldn’t remember if it was Tuesday or Thursday, though, and it’s not like I was sitting by the computer waiting for the e-mail results…

But on Thursday after I did some raking (mowing, as I told you yesterday), I popped onto e-mail and there was the message above.

It was exciting - it’s always exciting to get an acceptance e-mail, whether it’s writing related or running related or otherwise - but because I hadn’t been obsessing over this race the way I have others in the past I took it more in stride.

But I get more and more excited the more I think about it.

As I’ve told you, I’d like to train with Team Framingham in some way even if I’m not running Boston this year.

This gives me something to train for in these first winter months no matter what.

And mid-March is the perfect time for a first race of the new year - last year I did a bunch of 5Ks early in the year to kick off my running, but the marathon and half marathon I ran weren’t until October and November, so I think starting with this in the first quarter of the year works really nicely.

And then if I end up running Boston, this is a well-placed half marathon a month before the marathon that slots nicely into the training schedule.

We’ll obviously cross that bridge when we come to it. In the next couple of weeks I should have an even clearer picture of the year ahead when I find out about Boston and Chicago.

If neither of those pans out, it’s nice that I have this. I’ve kind of been looking forward to a year where I had no lottery-entry races and I could just sign up and run. So that could be how I fill the rest of the calendar.

But either way, I’m look forward to filling the calendar with a couple of other races that I haven’t had the chance to try yet. (Or maybe one or two big ones that I have each run twice before.)