Marathon Maniacs revisited

Ok, last June I looked at the Marathon Maniacs group and I thought about seeing if I qualified but I decided that yellow or black shirts weren't my thing.

I am still not into yellow but I finally decided to go ahead and see if I would qualify, well, I did. So I went ahead and signed up. My number is Maniac - 1369. My hope is that I can touch base with some of the folks in the group as I look to get info on future races in other states.
If you want to know if you are a Marathon Maniac, just check this link - Are you a Marathon Maniac - Are you addicted to running marathons?, I answered yes to pretty much all of them. The question that caught my attention the most was:

When asked about your racing from none running people, do you find yourself talking with great passion to the point that the person that asked the question regrets ever asking?

I am pretty sure that anyone who I have talked to about running a marathon has lived this question.

So what will I do now that I am a member, I guess that is a really good question. I have added all of my past races to my history and I have looked around their website but for the moment that will probably be it. It was initially kind of fun to enter information on my marathon race history but I have to admit that it got kind of depressing as I read through each race note. My guess is I have only hit 1 in 2 marathons with a decent amount of training and in good health, and of those races, my guess is 2 of 3 those had a surprise. So what does that mean, it means I have had about 10% of my races where things went as expected, 50% of my races turned into struggles with injuries, illness or some other issue I was aware of going into the event. Another 37% of my races had something unexpectedly bad happen because of unexpected illness, weather, poor judgment or a variety of other mistakes I have made and the remaining 3% (yes, this equates to just one of my races) where something unexpectedly good happened. Then I thought about it a bit more and I realized that I cherish each and every race as they all have been fun.

So as I map out my future races should I consider the past as a predictor of the future, yes, I probably should, but I won't as I am the eternal optimist when it comes to my races. I will never probably train as well as I should nor will I stop when an injury happens instead I usually think things like this, maybe that injury might not get worse and maybe a long run is just what I need to work out the issue, the illness that hit a week ahead of the race should leave me rested not weak, the lack of marathon pace training will be ok, maybe the emotions of the day will carry me to the finish.

So back to the Maniacs, I have yet to order a shirt as I am not sure that I want the attention it might bring during a race. Then I thought about it a bit more and I realized that this ultra running - 50 state thing has me changing my ways. In the past I avoided groups yet in the past year I have now joined both of the Ultra email groups (Ultrarunning and ULTRA - Ultrarunning), the FDip group, the MN-Dead Runners, the Upper Midwest Trail Runners, and now the Maniacs. I even car pooled with Les and Wayne to my last race, next thing I will be rethinking running the Chicago and New York Marathons and only do large races, nah, not gonna happen as I love the small marathons and all trail events.

I simply am in search of information to help me on my journey and boy do the above groups provide it and along the way I have exchanged information and stories with a lot of very nice folks. My thanks to all of you...................