Two years ago, I wrote a review of
the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, and it’s by far my most viewed post. Having done numerous races sponsored by
Mainly Marathons, I’m long overdue to write a review of their races.
Overview
Mainly Marathons sponsors series of
marathons on consecutive days. Many of
their series involve racing in a different state each day. These types of race series appeal primarily
to two demographic groups. First, there
are the runners who want to do marathons (or half marathons) in every
state. If you’re in a hurry to finish
the states, or if you’re trying so save on airfare, this is a way to pick up
several states at once. Second, there
are the frequent marathoners. For people
trying to run as many races as possible, a series can give you an opportunity
to race on weekdays. Believe it or not,
for some people, doing races every weekend isn’t enough.
It’s a Family-Owned Business
Mainly Marathons is operated by
Clint and Hanne Burleson. Clint is the
race director for all their races. Hanna
administers all of their Facebook groups.
As their business has grown, they’ve hired a few employees who travel
with them to put on the races, but it’s still very much a family affair.
Volunteers
Some of the runners will volunteer
on the days they aren’t racing. By
volunteering at one race, you can get free entry into another race.
The Opinions Expressed …
This is not a sponsored review. I have no relationship to Mainly Marathons
other than as one of their customers, and I’m not being compensated in any way
for this review. Most of the opinions
expressed here are my own. In a few
cases, I’m also relating experiences and opinions I’ve heard from other runners.
Some of the information I’m
presenting here I’ve heard second hand.
I apologize if any of my details are incorrect.
History
The first Mainly Marathon series was
the Day of the Dead Series in 2012. This
was a four day series in Las Cruces, NM where the Burlesons live. Over the years, the Day of the Dead Series
has evolved. In 2013, they moved one of
the races to El Paso, TX and another to Wilcox, AZ. In 2014, they moved all the races back to Las
Cruces and expanded the series to seven days.
This year, the Day of the Dead Series will just be two days.
In 2013, they added two series which
were five marathons in five different states in five days. The Dust Bowl Series included races in Texas,
Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.
The Center of the Nation (CON) Series included races in Montana, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming.
The five states in five days format quickly became popular with 50 Staters,
Marathon Maniacs, and other frequent marathoners. Center of the Nation seems to be especially
popular. It seems every time I make a
new friend at a Mainly Marathons series, I’m asked, “Are you doing CON this
year?”
Each year since then, they’ve
expanded their calendar of events.
They’ve also added additional states to some of the existing
series. In 2017, they’re holding 81
marathons, organized into 12 different series.
In the past, they’ve also held a New Mexico State Parks Series.
The Aloha Series in Hawaii, which
debuted this year, was the first Mainly Marathon series outside the contiguous
48 states. Next year, they’ll be adding
a series in Alaska as well. Then they’ll
have races in all 50 states.
A complete list of series can be
found on the Mainly Marathons website.
The Traveling Road Show
Clint and Hanne travel from race to
race in their RV. Other members of their
crew also drive from state to state each day.
They arrive early to set up and mark the course; they wait until the
last runner has finished; and then they pack up and drive to the next state to
do it again the next day.
Runners doing a series each have
their own routines, but typically they fly to a central location and drive to
the first race. They stay in different
hotels each night. Each day, they get
up, run a marathon, pack up, and drive to the next city.
Clint usually recommends a few
budget hotels in each city. He also usually
suggests a restaurant where runners can get together for dinner. Some runners go to the group dinners; others
make their own plans. At the end of the
day, everybody tries to get some sleep.
In the morning, you get ready to do
it again. If you’re not sure about the
location, you can find the GPS coordinates on the website. You know you’re in the right place when you
see the Burlesons’ familiar RV.
Most of their series are organized
into a spring racing season and a fall racing season. After one series ends, the Burlesons will
make their way to the first state of their next series.
My Own Experience
I’ve done 22 races with Mainly
Marathoners. In 2013, I learned a few of
my friends were doing a race in Las Cruces called “El Maraton del Rio
Grande.” When I searched for information
about the race, I discovered it was the fourth race of the Day of the Dead
series. The third race in the series was
also in Las Cruces, so I decided to do them both. The closest major airport was in El
Paso. Since the first race of that series
was in El Paso that year, I did that race too.
The second race was farther away, so I rested day on day two. At one of the group dinners, I comment that I
was only doing three of the four
marathons. That’s when I learned you’re
not supposed to use the O word.
In 2014, I did all five races of the
Appalachian Series. In 2015, I did all
five races of the Independence Series, plus the first four days of the Day of
the Dead Series. In 2016, I did one race
of the Heartland Series, because it was in my home state of Minnesota. Finally, I just completed all four days of
the Aloha Series.
That’s a total of 22 races. The first 21 were marathons. On the last day of the Aloha series, I ran
the 50K instead.
You Can Mix and Match
In addition to marathons, Mainly
Marathons also offers half marathon, 5K and 50K races. All four distances are available each day.
You don’t have to do all the races
in a series, although many runners do.
You can also mix and match distances.
I’ve often seen runners doing marathons some days and half marathons
other days.
Clint goes out of his way to be
flexible. If you signed up for the
marathon, but aren’t feeling up to it, you can drop down to the half
marathon. Alternatively, you can switch
to a longer distance. You just need to
pay the difference in entry fees. On the
last day of the Aloha Series, I was signed up for the marathon, but decided to
run 50K instead. When I completed enough
laps for a marathon, they recorded my time.
If I couldn’t finish 50K, I would still get an official marathon
time. When I finished 50K, they recorded
that time.
Usually all races start at the same
time, but in Hawaii, the marathons started at 4:30 and the half marathons
started at 7:00. Some of the half
marathoners were sharing rides with marathoners. No problem.
If you were running the half marathon and wanted to start at 4:30 with
the marathoners, you could do that. You
just needed to let Clint know. That
opened up new possibilities. For
example, you could run a half marathon at 4:30 and also run a 5K at 7:00. You
had to pay both entry fees, of course.
Time Limits
There aren’t any. Mainly Marathons caters to back-of-the-pack
runners. They have a “no runner left
behind” policy. At the Aloha Series,
there were runners on the course for 10 hours.
The Burlesons will stay until the last runner finishes. Everybody who completes the distance gets an
official time.
This Isn’t the Big City
The race venues are chosen, in part,
to make the drive times between states manageable. After all, you can’t expect to run a marathon
and then drive for eight hours before racing the next day. Usually, the drive times between cities are less
than two hours. At most, you might have
to drive for five hours.
That often means holding races in a
part of a state that’s far away from the major population centers. Some of the races are in small towns that
you’ve never heard of before. In the series
I’ve done, I haven’t had trouble finding lodging, but dining options in some
towns can be limited.
These races don’t have thousands of
cheering spectators. Most of the
encouragement will come from other runners or their friends. That said, everybody encourages each other.
The Course
Most of the races are held in city
parks. The course is usually paved, but
I’ve done one Mainly Marathons race that was on grass.
The course is always multiple laps
on a relatively short out-and-back course.
You can usually expect to do between 12 and 20 laps to complete a
marathon.
This type of course layout serves
two purposes. First, it allows them, in
most cases, to get by with a single well-stocked aid station in the
start/finish area. It also maximizes the
opportunity to see the other runners. I’ve
often see people walking or running with different friends at various times
during the race. Even if you’re running
by yourself, you’ll see all the runners who are going in the opposite
direction. If you don’t see every runner
on the course, you’re not paying attention.
Lap Counting
Timekeeping is all manual. There’s a large table in the start/finish
area covered with rubber bands. Each
time you finish a lap, you put another rubber band on your wrist. If you forget how many laps you’ve run, you
can always count the rubber bands. When
you approach the finish for your last lap, you let the timers know you’re
finishing and they record your time.
While most runners are honest, I’ve
heard allegations of runners cheating by not running the required number of
laps. In case there’s any doubt, the
timekeepers have video cameras at both ends of the course (and sometimes at
points in between) so it’s always possible to check if someone ran the full
distance.
Entry Fees
A few of my friends have expressed the
opinion that these races are expensive. They’re
not as expensive as New York City or Disney, but they are more expensive than
many races of comparable size.
When I started running, most races
were put on by running clubs or other non-profit organizations. They only had to charge enough to cover their
costs. Now, many races are sponsored by
for-profit enterprises, so they charge whatever the market will bear. These races are no different.
Ultimately, it’s up to each runner
to decide if the race experience they’re getting is worth the money. That’s a subjective decision. When I make that decision, I consider not
just the entry fee, but all my travel expenses.
Doing a series of races allows me to save on airfare. For what it’s worth, my average cost per race
doing a Mainly Marathons series is usually less than my average cost when I’m
making a separate trip for each race.
The entry fee to sign up on race day
is fairly expensive, but you pay a lower fee if you register several months in
advance. They also offer “volume”
discounts if you sign up for all days of a series at the same time. They also have discounts for member of the 50
States Marathon Club, Marathon Maniacs, or any other club that lists their races
on their race calendars. Finally, you
can gain free entries by volunteering at races.
Website and Social Media
The website is www.mainlymarathons.com. It lists all the series, and within each series,
there’s information about each race.
There are also pages with results and photos from past races, as well as
what to expect.
The results pages list runners
alphabetically, but you can also sort the results in other ways (e.g. by finish
time).
If you’re on Facebook, you might
want to check out their various Facebook groups. There’s a MainlyMarathons group with general
news and information. This is a good
place to post questions. Clint and Hanne
are pretty good about answering questions promptly.
They also have separate groups for
each series. If you know you’re doing a particular
series, this is a good place to connect with other runners doing the same
series.
Expo
You can usually pick up your race
packet for the entire series the day before the first race. Otherwise, you can pick up your race packet
before your first race.
If you’re running the same distance
each day, you’ll just get one race bib for the entire series. If you’re mixing distances, you’ll get more
than one race bib. Likewise, you’ll get
a T-shirt for the series, whether you’re doing one race or multiple races. For the marathons, the race numbers are
usually assigned according to how many marathons you’ve run. The lowest numbers go to prolific marathoners
like Larry Macon or Jim Simpson. If you
see someone wearing s single digit number, you can assume they’ve run at least
a few hundred marathons.
They don’t have a big expo with
multiple vendors, but they do have some merchandise for sale, including shirts,
artwork, and bumper stickers.
Aid Stations
There’s usually one aid station in
the start/finish area. Depending on how
long the laps are, there might be a secondary aid station. The main station is similar to what you might
expect to find in a large trail race.
Beverages include water, Gatorade, and chocolate milk. Foods include various cookies and crackers,
fruit, pickles, olives, and sandwiches.
If one of the runners is celebrating a birthday, you might see birthday
cake.
They usually have a grill where they
prepare various hot foods. One time
during the Day of the Dead Series, I was eating burritos during the race.
If you have special dietary needs,
let them know. They’ll do their best to
accommodate you if they can.
There’s also an area next to the aid
station where you can leave a drop bag.
Bring whatever gear or special foods you’d like to have handy during the
race.
Camaraderie
The layout of the course gives
runners opportunities to encourage each other.
If you do every race in a series, you’ll see many of the same runners
each day. If you go to the group
dinners, you’ll see them again in a social setting.
Many runners will carpool or share
hotel rooms to save on travel costs.
These races are bonding experiences.
When you do a series, you make friends for life.
The Medals
You get a finisher medal for each
race. For the multi-state series, they’re
usually in the shape of the state.
Often, they’re designed to link together to form a chain. There’s an extra piece at the top for anyone
who does at least one race of a series.
You get that at packet pickup.
There’s a piece that attaches at the bottom to identify the year. Finally, there’s an extra medal for anyone
who does every race in a series. Here’s
an example:
Awards
These races encourage
back-of-the-pack athletes. There aren’t any
awards for the fastest finishers, but there’s always one for the slowest. The last finisher in each race wins the
“caboose” award. You can only get one
“caboose” award in a series. If the same
runner finishes last more than once, the next slowest runner gets the “caboose”
award.
They also encourage runners to reach
long-term goals. If you finish 50 states
at a Mainly Marathons race, they’ll give you a special medal. They also have special awards for reaching
the top levels for Marathon Maniacs.
Mainlyners
If you go to many Mainly Marathons
races, you’ll start to see some of the same runners again and again. These runners are called “Mainlyners.” You officially become a “Mainlyner” after
completing 25 of their races. If you
complete 50, you get a special award shaped like a skull. If you complete 100, you get a larger award
shaped like a skeleton.
Summary
Would I recommend a Mainly Marathons
race or series? It depends what you’re
looking for. If you want the hype and
hoopla of a big city race, you won’t find it here. If you want a point-to-point course that
gives you different scenery along the whole route, you won’t find that either. If you’re looking for a social experience,
these races are ideal. Likewise, if you
want to do a lot of races all around the country and save on travel costs,
these races make that easier.
I’m not a “Mainlyner” yet, but I’m
sure I will be in the future. I’m not
aiming to run 100 marathons in a year, but I sometimes enjoy the challenge of
racing on four or five consecutive days.
I’ve also made several friends at these races, and I look forward to
seeing them again.
