2014 Plan - Minnesota Marathons?

It hit me, the perfect running plan for next year. One that would help me rebuild both my marathon and ultra legs and provide me a goal that is a perfect maniac goal. What is it? Simple, run every marathon in Minnesota.

So here is the potential schedule and travel times:

DATE:	NAME:	CITY:	Travel – Miles:
01/12/14	Zoom! Yah! Yah! Indoor Marathon	Northfield	~½ hr ~20 miles
04/26/14	Brainerd Jaycees Run for the Lakes	Nisswa	-3 hrs ~165 miles
05/10/14	Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon	St. Joseph	-1 ½ hrs ~90 miles
05/25/14	Med-City Marathon	Rochester	-1 hrs ~65 miles
06/01/14	Minneapolis Marathon	Minneapolis	~½ hr ~20 miles
06/21/14	Grandmas Marathon	Duluth	~2 ½ hrs ~175 miles
07/12/14	Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon	Carlton	~2 ½ hrs ~150 miles
09/06/14	Moose Mountain Marathon	Lutsen	~5 hrs ~265 miles
09/20/14	Walker/North Country Races	Walker	~4 hrs ~210 miles
10/05/14	Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon	Mpls/St.Paul	~½ hr ~20 miles
10/11/14	Bemidji Blue Ox Marathon	Bemidji	~4 ½ hrs ~240 miles
10/19/14	Mankato Marathon	Mankato	~1 ½ hrs ~80 miles

One problem with the schedule is the first marathon only has 44 participants and the entry is closed. I have emailed the race director to see if he has an opening but thinking realistically and maybe a little legalistically, it is an indoor marathon. So maybe I should amend my goal to run all of the outdoor Minnesota marathons.

It would only be 11 marathons and if I add in Surf the Murph 50k or 50 miler in late October, well it would make a nice round number of events and a decent year of running. And with the exception of Twin Cities and Bemidji being 6 days apart none of the rest are even a concern as there is plenty of time to recover between events. The good news is that with the exception of the two trail events, I wouldn't have to worry about long runs, I could just go event to event.

The other thing I really like about this concept is that I would have from Surf the Murph until the end of April to get totally healthy and prepared (assuming, Zoom Yah Yah is a no). Granted I have squandered this time in the past but I think this is the type of focus I could use. The only negative is it would mean no additional states would get done nor would it let me run a longer ultra but it might get me healthy and I do think it would be cool to say I have run every outdoor marathon in Minnesota and to do it the same year only makes sense. Plus if I commit to doing it soon, then I can save a bit of money on entry fees.

So now it's time to clear the schedule with the family to see if they are ok with the plan as 6 of the events would require us (or I guess technically me but I know my wife would like to do some of these too) to drive more than a few hours meaning weekends either camping or in a hotel. Or I could think about running all of the Minnesota trail events, many of which I have yet to do, I wonder what that would look like? Or maybe I should focus again on clicking off marathons in other states. It is a lot of fun to plan those out of state events but it does get expensive depending on the states. So time to get the family view on the potential plans, the good news is that whichever way it goes, all the ideas sound like fun.