Multiple Marathon Monday

Welcome to a new series – Multiple Marathon Monday. This series is intended to help the marathoner who wants to do multiple marathons in the planning and traveling of your series of marathons. Thanks for reading and good luck!

Multiple Marathon Monday

If you have been running races for any amount of time, you have undoubtedly heard of Marathon Maniacs. These are the runners who run marathons within a short time-frame – starting at 2 marathons within a 16 day period / 3 marathons within a 90 day time frame and going up to 52 marathons or more within 365 days / 30 marathons in 30 US states, Countries, or Canadian Provinces (any combination) within 365 days / 20 countries within 365 days.

As you can imagine, running that many marathons in a short of time takes a great amount of training, preparation, planning, and logistics. While I cannot help you to do the actual training (sorry, you have to put the miles in on your own – no shortcuts!), I do hope that this weekly series will be a help to you as you plan for multiple races in a short amount of time. Maybe you are at the Titanium Level (the top Marathon Maniac level) and you could use some help with the travel planning or maybe you had never thought it possible to join the ranks because of the travel involved – this Marathon Maniac Monday series should help you!

Marathon Maniac Resources

The internet is a fantastic tool to bring people together of similar interests. Of course, finding fellow Marathon Maniacs is no different. Here are some tools to help you learn a little bit about the Marathon Maniac world and find information about different marathons.

• Marathon Maniac website
• Marathon Guide.com
• Runnersworld.com Marathon Forum
• Ahotu Marathon Calendar
• IAAF Road Race Calendar 2013
• State Department Travel site (in case you are looking for marathons in various countries)
• Hal Higdon’s Multiple Marathon Program
• Runningplanet.com Multiple Marathon Training Program

Marathon Maniac Initial Thoughts

While I am not a member of the “official” Marathon Maniac club, I do qualify (only sanctioned events count or else my Marathon Maniac rank would be at the Osmium Level for running 5 26.2 mile distances in 5 days!) and have a little experience in running multiple marathon distances within a short amount of time. I am by no means a professional or authority, but there were a few things that I had learned that may be of interest for the beginning Marathon Maniac as you consider whether you want to participate in multiple marathoning.

• Set a goal – for most people, it will be to finish both (or more) uninjured. This means that you will not be running the marathons at even close to your PR pace.
• Plan on having fun – if you travel to different cities/states/countries for your multiple marathons, plan on enjoying the cities you are in and the sights you will see. Since this will not be a PR race, you can just concentrate on enjoying yourself!
• Train accordingly – believe it or not, you can qualify for the Marathon Maniac club without altering your typical marathon training program (assuming you have a healthy amount of long runs integrated). The first level is 2 marathons in 16 days or 3 marathons within 90 days. By approaching the marathons with more of your long run pace instead of marathon pace, you will be able to treat the first of the marathons as a longer, long run. Don’t overtrain yourself to prepare for 3 marathons in 90 days. Many of the older (by that, I mean older than me!) multiple marathoners typically do not even train for their races. When they are running marathons every weekend, that counts as their training. So, train with the proper amount of distance prep but do not overtrain out of fear that you will be underprepared – it can cause injury
• Plan the travel in a smart fashion – for your first Marathon Maniac attempt, you do not want to be flying half-way across the globe with 5 connections to get to the second marathon the day after the first (even when I ran my 5 marathons on 5 continents in 5 days, I went for non-stops to minimize distraction and travel delays). Pick marathons that have cities that are neatly connected to eliminate that difficulty from your mind.
• Do not neglect everything else in your life for your goal – this could really go for anything, but it is very appropriate with this. I do not want to tell you how to live your life but I do want to give a word of caution, especially to those of you with families. This is a fun hobby and often one that our families can tag along with. It is very helpful and great to have the support of your family – don’t take that for granted in your training and racing. Your family will thank you. 🙂

Future Multiple Marathon Monday Posts

I will not give all the different ideas out here that I will be pursuing each Monday, but I do want to whet your appetite. 🙂 In the weeks to come, we will look at training tips, planning strategies, and I will take you step-by-step as we pick two marathons later in the year to use for our example in preparation and planning. Be sure to follow along!