Mainly Marathons

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I’ve started my bucket list. There are a couple of things I’ve never done: play a round of golf and complete a triathlon. I’m thinking about how I can accomplish these.

Another is to complete a marathon in all 50 states. I’m up to 40.

In 1993, I decided to run a marathon before getting too old. Now, I’m getting too old, and my window of opportunity is shrinking.

To help me find possible marathons, I use the website marathonguide.com. The site has a comprehensive listing of all advertised marathons in the United States. And, it is possible to find races advertised in past years for potential future year races. COVID impacted many marathons around the country.

The listings include past race results, links to race websites, and race participant comments.

On the marathonguide.com site, I found the three races I ran in the last week of April. The three races were part of the Riverboat Series managed by Mainly Marathons.

Mainly Marathons manages 13 multiple-day race series across the United States. Each state in the union is included in one of the series. In a year, they operate 70 races.

A typical race series is six or seven consecutive days, each day in a different state. They offer five race distances each day 5km, 10km, half-marathon, marathon, and 50km.

The travel distance and time between race days is less than 100 miles and two hours. The typical route goes south to north with states on both sides.

Usually, the races are held in a state or local park. Hotel accommodations are not always near the race venue. There is camping and RV parking either at the race venue or within a couple of miles.

The races are multiple laps of an out and back route. The start/finish could be at the endpoint of a lap or in the middle. In all cases, there are two 180-degree turnarounds on each lap. Red cones demark the limit of each lap.

The marathon is the main event of the day. The marathon will use an even number of laps.

With an even number of laps for a marathon, dividing the laps by 2 provides the number of laps for a half-marathon. I’ve run their ten, 14,  and 18 lap marathons.

A 50km has many full laps and a final short lap to complete the distance. A green cone indicates the turnaround point for the last short lap.

A 5km is one whole lap, usually followed by a final short lap. A yellow cone indicates the 5km turnaround point for the short lap.

A 10km is two complete laps followed by two short laps to the 5km turnaround cone.

They advertise their races as USATF Sanctioned. That means they have USATF race insurance and follow USATF rules. They have a choice to use USATF course certification standards or measure their course using a walking wheel. Because they use the latter option, they must add a 1% error factor to their measurements. So, a marathon distance measured is 26.46 miles.

The race surfaces could be asphalt, cement, or crushed stone to rough trails. They indicate in the advertising the trail surface.

They try to layout courses in the shade and avoid hills.

Because of their course layouts and running surfaces, the races are not easy to accomplish a Boston Qualifier. Being USATF Sanctioned, the races are Boston Qualification eligible.

Runners do wear bib numbers to help with locals on the course. Names are written on the bibs to help runners greet each other when they pass.

They leave lap counting to the participants. So, race management does not count the laps or use electronic tracking. Instead, a runner picks up a brown rubber band at the end of each lap. I would put my bands around my left wrist. After five laps, runners may trade their rubber bands for an orange rubber band.

At the end of the race, runners ring a bell at the finish line to alert management to capture a time.

The races start right after sunrise. Those expecting to take more than 7 hours to finish have an option to use an early start, one hour before the general field. The organizer’s website indicates the early start is only for the marathon and 50km runners. However, more people used the early start than the regular start, and runners represented all distances in the early start field.

Since the early start is in the dark, a flashlight is recommended. Civil daylight will start peeking through after 30 to 45 minutes.

One of the race directors runs the first lap of the early start and general field route. There are no course marshals. Green cones mark the edge of the course at turns, and orange cones block spur trails. A race director’s run leads the pack for them to understand the course direction.

The park settings allow public restrooms near the start/finish line and sometimes on the course. With the multiple lap formats, facilities are no more than a lap away.

The organizers manage a snack buffet at the start/finish line. The buffet has water, a replenishment drink, and space for personal bottles.

There was enough space for my small tub that contained five premixed bottles and suntan spray. After the first lap, I dropped my headlamp and my extra shirt in my tub.

The buffet included sweet snacks, salty snacks, and a specialty food for the day. The specialty food offerings have included pizza, pork sliders, and hot dogs. Only hot dog day had the specialty food still available by the time I finished. They did have a vegan dog version, too.

All races are “No time limit.” The organizers will stay around until the last person finishes. On one of my race days, a competitor exceeded 10 hours for a marathon.

So, if you can’t complete your typical road marathon within the race time limits, you do not worry about Mainly Marathons. That’s as long as you can cope with the multiple loop format.

The mean marathon finish time for these races is 7 hours with a standard deviation of 1 hour and 40 minutes. It appears to be a core group of runners doing many Mainly Marathons race series per year.

Some runners do more than 50 marathons per year and do more walking than running. Some of the competitors have completed many hundred and thousand marathons.

With the lowkey environment and the emphasis on finishing and socializing, I reduced my motivation to run fast.

I changed how I progressed through a race. Rather than thinking miles completed and miles to go, I thought laps.

They provide a series start medal with a connecting finisher medal for each stage. Those completing all days in a series get a connecting finisher medal. And there is an excellent technical race shirt.

There will be more Mainly Marathons in my future.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to complete the last ten states by the end of 2023.