Running Goals

My running goals:

Marathon Goals:

                    I remember running my first marathon in Brookings, SD back in 2004, when I was 17. I recall seeing an elderly runner with a T-Shirt proclaiming that he had finished 50 Marathons in 50 States. I had to re-read the message and scanned the shirt for all his different times and places he’d run. What an amazing accomplishment! Not only physically, but logistically. Also, what a great excuse to travel the country!

                    At the time I was content trying to finish my first marathon. But that moment stuck with me. Since I have always liked lists and being able to cross off item by item, my goal is to finish one marathon in each state. I don’t want to think about the total being 50 and how many years this endeavor may take. I plan on taking it state by state. There is a disclaimer I have to make to this. My initial goal will include "un-official" marathons. Meaning, if I happen to be in the state of Mississippi and I got a few hours to spare, I will try to run 26.2 miles straight and cross the state of my list. I don’t see the greater value in paying $50-$150 for my troubles if I can do it for free on any given country road.

To contradict myself, my secondary goal is to run 50 "official" marathons as well so that I can go back and delete my previous comment :).

Another marathon goal is to run 50 marathons (official or un-official) in 50 different countries. I got inspired by this through reading the books from Dean Karnazes. His goal of running a marathon in every country in the world within the span of one year just seems so crazy, but yet I am very envious of the idea of travelling to each place.

I am fortunate to be able to travel around the globe for my job, which should make it possible, at least logistically, to attempt my two goals of running marathons. In summary, I plan on running 50 marathons in 50 states, in addition to running a marathon in 49 additional countries. I supposed to math will leave me at an awkward 99, but I will figure out something at the time to deal with that number.

So far I am at 3 states (South Dakota, Minnesota and California) and 2 countries (USA and Germany). It’s a humble start, but I think it’s doable. I’ll take any excuse to travel to another state/country and will make the time to run the 26.2 miles.

Ultra-marathon goals:

                Whoever hasn’t given up on me reading this blog so far, will likely do so in the next few minutes. I am not content running 26.2 miles without pause and calling it a day. Because finishing that distance should leave me with about 20-21 hours to spare in that same day. My goal is to expand the distance I can run without break continuously. I got hooked on the ultra-endurance events reading books by Scott Jurek, Rich Roll and Dean Karnazes. An ultra-running event is anything beyond the 26.2 mile marathon distance.

               So far I have completed one 31 mile run (50Km) as my furthest run to date. This was a training run to simply see if I can go out and run that distance. I will post another time about this run in particular.

I plan on finishing a 100 mile race in under 24 hours. In addition, I plan on running a 24hour running event to see how many miles I can add up on a flat course.

Any other length event I run in the meantime will count as preparation for the longer distances.

              I know this sounds nuts. But I think it sounds doable. I will prove it to myself that one or the other is true.