Series Preview: The Jackal Marathons

Over the next five days, I’ll be doing a series of races called The Jackal Marathons. It’s five marathons on five consecutive days.  Three of the races are trail marathons and the other two are paved.

The first two races are on a trail loop in Jackson, TN.  The next two races are on a paved loop in Pinson Mounds, which is just outside of Henderson, TN.  The last race is on a more challenging trail loop in Chickasaw State Park.

All of these race venues are within 25 miles of Jackson, so I’ll be staying at a hotel in Jackson for the entire series.

Jackson is about 85 miles from Memphis.  I flew to Memphis this morning, and drove from there.  After checking into my hotel, I picked up some groceries.  The races all start early, so I’ll need to make my own breakfasts.  I also wanted to have food for post-race snacks.  In a series like this, post-race recovery is important, and part of that is refueling as soon as possible after each race.

I’ve done other five-day series, but from everything I’ve read, this one will be much more challenging.  Trails are more challenging for me than road races, but that’s not the big challenge.  The big challenge will be the heat and humidity.

In late June, it gets pretty hot in Tennessee.  I expect temperatures ranging from mid 70s to low 90s.  On top of that, I’ll have to contend with high humidity.  This is a map I downloaded a few days ago.  It shows the regions in the U.S. that will experience the highest humidity in the second half of June.  Western Tennessee is squarely within the region labeled “extreme.”

I’ve done lots of marathons in hot, humid conditions.  I’ve generally handled it well.  I’ve also done ultramarathons in hot, humid conditions, with mixed results.  The humidity will bother me more than the temperature.  Getting through one race is manageable.  The hardest part will be recovering from each race in time to run in the same conditions again the next day.  Running in these conditions can take a toll on you, and it’s hard to recover quickly if you overheat or get dehydrated.

I don’t have any time goals for these races.  I’ll take as long as I need to finish each race comfortably.  My top priority each day will be making sure I can be ready to go again the next morning.

Some runners just do one or two of these races.  Others do the whole five-day series.  There’s a small group of runners who come back to do this series every year.  I expect by the time I’m done with this series, the runners I see every day will feel like family.

Each day, I’ll post a race report.