A Quadzilla Update

My primary motivation for running the Jackal Marathons was to get a quadzilla in another state.  I’ve been trying to run quadzillas in as many different states as I can.  It’s not actually possible to run one in every state.  There aren’t series of races in every state.  I’ll run the ones I can find.

The term “quadzilla” was coined by members of Marathon Maniacs.  Today, there are numerous series of races held over multiple days, but it wasn’t always like that.

When I joined the 50 States Marathon Club, I heard about other runners who would sometimes run a marathon in one state on a Saturday and then run one in another state on Sunday.  They called this a weekend double.

I ran my first double in 2005.  I was already signed up for a race in Connecticut called the Mystic Places Marathon.  Then I learned that there was a race in Newport, RI the day before.  Deb and I flew to Providence on Friday, spent one night in Newport, and then spent the rest of our vacation in Mystic.

Running a “double” was tough, but not nearly as tough as I expected it to be.  A year later, I did another double with races in Indiana and Kentucky.

The next step up was a triple.  I knew of only one place where you could to that.  It was the Tahoe Triple, which is in California and Nevada.  Over the course of three days, you run all the way around Lake Tahoe, with a little bit of overlap.

Before I ran my first triple, I joined Marathon Maniacs.  This club is all about running marathons frequently.  Some members, including the three founders, had done something they called a quadzilla.  In recent years, the Tahoe Triple has taken place over a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Originally, it was Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, making it possible to run another marathon on Sunday.  A few guys combined the Tahoe Triple with the Bizz Johnson Marathon, and the quadzilla was born.

I had my sights set on trying the Tahoe Triple in 2011, but then I learned about another triple.  There was a race in Portland, OR that was always held on July 4, regardless of what day of the week it was.  It was a race sponsored by Foot Traffic called the Flat Marathon.  In 2011, July 4 was a Monday.  Steve Walters, who lives in the Portland area created two smaller races on Saturday and Sunday.  These races could be combined with the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon for a triple over the long weekend.  Steve called it the Firecracker Triple, and he ordered T-shirts.

I ran the Firecracker Triple in July and then ran the Tahoe Triple in September.  The next step up was a quadzilla.

With the Tahoe Triple shifting to Friday through Sunday, it was no longer possible to do the original quadzilla, but now there was one in Seattle.  The Seattle Quadzilla consisted of four marathons over the Thanksgiving long weekend.

At the time, the Seattle Quadzilla was the only place in the United States where you could run marathons on four consecutive days.  Today, there are numerous multi-day series of marathons, but none of those existed yet.  The quadzilla was still the pinnacle.  For a Marathon Maniac, it was the most badass thing you could do.

Flash forward to 2013.  July 4 was a Thursday.  Steve Walter held races on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  If you did those three plus the Flat Marathon, it was called the Firecracker Quadzilla.  I ran the Firecracker Quadzilla in July, and then I ran the Seattle Quadzilla in November.

On the second day of the Seattle Quadzilla, I was wearing my T-shirt from the Firecracker Quadzilla.  Another runner saw my shirt and said, “Look.  That guy’s a quadzilla expert."  Steve was standing next to me at the time, and it started a brief conversation.  We wondered how many states there were where you could run a quadzilla.  We didn’t consider the new series Mainly Marathons had where you could run marathons in several different states on consecutive days.

Besides the Firecracker Quadzilla in Oregon and the Seattle Quadzilla in Washington, we could think of only three others.  There was the Texas Quad, which was also held over Thanksgiving weekend, the Day of the Dead Series in New Mexico, and the Savage Seven in Florida.

It was this conversation that planted the idea in my mind.  I wanted to run a quadzilla in as many different states as I could.  I don’t know why I focused solely on series that were all in one state.  Maybe it’s because I was a member of the 50 States Marathon Club, and I saw running quadzillas in each state as a similar goal, even though I knew it was impossible.

I didn’t add my third state until 2015.  By then, the Day of the Dead Series had grown to a seven-day series.  I didn’t do the whole series.  I just ran the first four days.  That was enough to complete a quadzilla in New Mexico.

Mainly Marathons had been adding more and more multi-day series, but they all spanned multiple states.  I lobbied Clint Burleson to add a series in Hawaii.  Eventually he did.  It was called the Aloha Series.  It was a four-day series with every race on the island of Kauai.  I ran that series in 2017.

Clint also added an Alaska Series, giving him marathons in all 50 states.  Then he sold Mainly Marathons to two brothers from Minnesota.  They added a series of four trail marathons in Minnesota and called it the Minnesota Brothers Trail Series.  I ran the Minnesota Brothers Trail Series in 2019.

In 2019, I also did four days of the Savage Seven.  The Savage Seven was a seven-day series in Florida.  The series started the day after Christmas and ended on New Years Day.  I didn’t want to travel on Christmas Day, so I flew to Florida on the 26th and only ran days two through five of the series.  That was enough to get a quadzilla in Florida. I was able to fly home in time for New Years.

I had plans to run the Alaska Series in 2020, but I cancelled those plans because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  I had lots of race plans that got cancelled that year, but I found something epic to replace them.

The Rueckert brothers had rebranded their Minnesota series.  Now it was called Summer Camp, and they expanded it to six days.  They already had two other series that included races in Minnesota.  Their Heartland Series had races in seven different states, with the last one in Minnesota.  Their Prairie Series also had races in seven different states, with the first one in Minnesota.  Their grand plan for 2020 was to hold these three series back-to-back.  If you did all three, you could run marathons on 20 consecutive days.  There was just one problem.  The pandemic made it nearly impossible to get permits to hold races at venues in 13 different states.

Most of their series had to be cancelled that year, but they rearranged this one.  After learning what they had to do to get permits for races in Minnesota, they merged these three series and pulled all the races into Minnesota.  They called it Running Ragged 20 in 20.

I ran the Running Ragged 20 in 20 series, even though I already had done a series in Minnesota.  It was something epic to replace all the races that got cancelled that year.  Two months later, I did the Texas Quad.

In 2021, I finally did the Alaska Series, which was a four-day series.  I didn’t add any more new states until this week, when I did the Jackal Marathons to add Tennessee.  Now I’ve run a quadzilla (or more) in nine different states.

I’m planning to do Arizona next.  Aravaipa Running has multiple events going on at the same time during Across the Years.  Most of them are fixed-time ultras, ranging anywhere from six hours to six days.  During their six-day race, they also have marathons each day.  I’m planning to do all six, even though I would only need four to get an Arizona quadzilla.

If you’re reading this, please consider joining me in Arizona to run as many as six marathons from December 28 through January 2.  If you can’t make it for the whole series, consider doing the races on January 1st and 2nd.  I’ve looked at past results, and they get plenty of runners for the first four days, but not as many on the first two days of January.  I think too many people need to get home to return to work.  I’m hoping to recruit enough other runners to make sure there are at least 15 of us every day.

Running quadzillas in different states is sort of a silly goal.  I’m off in the weeds on my own for this one.  It’s silly for three reasons.  First, I know I can’t run them in every state.  I’m already running out of states that have quadzilla opportunities.  Second, running a quadzilla was once the be-all and end-all of running on consecutive days, but that’s no longer the case.  Finally, it ignores the many multi-day series that include marathons in more than one state.  Mainly Marathons has numerous multi-day series.  There’s also the Four Corners Quad Keyah and the New England Challenge.

I’m running out of serious goals, so I guess I’m down to the silly ones now.  In other news, the Jackal Trail Marathon was my second marathon starting with the letter J.  If I do one more race starting with Q, I could complete another round of the alphabet.