Something that I’ve talked to a few people about on Twitter and DailyMile, but never really openly, is Marathon Maniacs. If you’ve never heard of it, it’s basically a club for people who run a lot of marathons. But the kicker is that you have to qualify to get in. It doesn’t matter how fast you run your marathons, just that you complete them. And you have to run a certain number within a given number of days in order to qualify at different levels. The different levels range anywhere between bronze for having run 3 marathons in 90 days, all the way up to titanium level for 52 marathons in 365 days.
Richard Leary 6-Hour Challenge
For those of you that have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you probably know by now that I’m a big fan of Sam from Operation Jack. If you don’t know what he’s about, or what he did last year, go check out his site and come back. I’ll wait.
Lost Lake Trail Race Recap
Hot on the tail of my 16-minute PR at the Moose’s Tooth Marathon the previous week, last weekend I did the Lost Lake Run, a 16 mile trail run down in Seward. Normally I wouldn’t schedule two big races back-to-back like this, but I had already signed up for the marathon, and this trail race just sounded like too much fun to pass up.
I was right.
I had heard about this race in the past and was at least vaguely familiar with it, but I had no idea how popular of a race this was, especially for a trail race. There were around 600 people there, compared to the 400-ish at the past weekend’s marathon.
Moose’s Tooth Marathon Recap
On Sunday, I ran the Moose’s Tooth Marathon here in Anchorage. One year ago, I was running my first 1/2 Marathon at this same event; this year, I ran my 3rd marathon. This time around, I really wanted to finish in under 4 hours. I’ve been training hard all summer since Mayor’s Marathon in June, peaking my training with a long run of 22 miles and a total weekly mileage of 50 miles.
I knew I had to keep an average pace of 9:09 minutes/mile if I wanted to hit my goal, and I was determined to stay as close to that pace the entire race as I could. In the past, I know I’ve been guilty of starting out too fast and then really slowing down towards the end. I felt that if I could keep a nice even pacing throughout the race, that I could pull off my sub-4 goal. Through the early miles, I really had to remind myself to slow down and run my pace. Even though I feel good at a faster pace now, I knew that feeling wouldn’t last. I also wanted to go for a negative split, so I was trying to hit the half as close to 2 hours as possible. I was a litlte fast, but not by too much – I hit the half right around 1:59:45.
A Fun Way To Help Me Raise Money For TAPS
If you haven’t heard, I’m running the Marine Corps Marathon in October to raise money for TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors). They’re a wonderful organization that provides support and grief counseling to the families of our fallen soldiers. My father-in-law was killed in a plane crash while serving in the Air Force, and when that happened, TAPS was there for my wife and her family. I’m running this race in his memory, and will be wearing his photo on my back.
Anyways, instead of continuing to just ask for straight-up donations, I came up with sort of a fun way to help me raise money for TAPS. On August 21, I’m running the Moose’s Tooth Marathon here in Anchorage. This is a relatively flat course, and I really want to blow it out of the water. To help motivate me, I’m asking that you pledge a donation to TAPS for every minute I take off of my current marathon PR.
Just to make things easier, I’m going to round the times off to the nearest minute, making my current PR 4:17. I’ve really been training hard, and am going to continue to put everything I have into this one. My goal time for this race is to finish in just under 4 hours. So, for example, if I finish in 4 hours, and you pledged $1/minute, that would mean a $17 donation to TAPS.
Like I said, I really want to do well at this race, and use it to raise as much money as I can for TAPS. Knowing that the faster I finish, the more money I will raise for them, will really help me push it through those last few miles that are always tough. Please help me out by making your pledge here. Every dollar helps, so even a pledge of just 25¢ or 50¢/minute would be greatly appreciated, more than you probably know.
Or if you prefer, you can always make a regular (tax-deductible) donation to TAPS here.