Series Preview: 2019 Savage Seven

Over the next four days, I’ll be running four marathons.  These races are part of a series called the Savage Seven.  This is a series of seven marathons in seven days.  This series is held annually, beginning the day after Christmas and continuing through New Year’s Day.

The Savage Seven is held in Ocala, FL.  To be there for day one, I would’ve needed to fly to Florida on Christmas Day.  I opted to skip day one, so I could wait until the day after Christmas to fly to Florida.  I also plan to skip the last two days of the series, so I can fly home on New Year’s Eve and be home for New Year’s Day.

Although I’m only doing four of the seven marathons, that’s enough for me to achieve my goal.  I want to run a quadzilla (four marathons in four days) in Florida.  Why do I want to run a quadzilla in Florida?  That goes back to a conversation I had with Steve Walters way back in 2013.

In 2013, I ran the Seattle Quadzilla.  On the second day of that series, I was wearing a T-shirt from the Firecracker Quadzilla in Oregon, which I ran earlier in the year.  Another runner saw my T-shirt and said, “Hey.  He’s a quadzilla expert.”  That started a conversation with Steve.  We were wondering how many states there were where you could run a quadzilla.

The Seattle Quadzilla was my second quadzilla state (Washington).  The first was Oregon.  In 2015, I ran the first four days of the Day of the Dead Series.  That was a seven day series in Las Cruces, NM.  That gave me quadzillas in three states.

In 2017, I ran the four day Aloha Series, giving me a quadzilla in Hawaii.  Earlier this year, I ran the four day Minnesota Brothers Trail Series, giving me a quadzilla in Minnesota.  Florida will be the sixth state where I’ve run a quadzilla.

I’m a member of the 50 States Marathon Club.  The goal is to run marathons in all 50 states, but you can join as soon as you’ve run marathons in at least 10 states.  I figured if I could run quadzillas in at least 10 states, I could be the founding member of the 50 States Quadzilla Club and have a special T-shirt made.

It’s not currently possible to run quadzillas in all 50 states, but you never know what the future holds.  Besides Oregon, Washington, New Mexico, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Florida, I can think of as many as eight other states where have been quadzilla opportunities at one time or another.  I’ll do as many as I can.  For now, it’s more of an amusing notion than a serious goal.

Delta had direct flights to Orlando, Tampa, or Jacksonville.  Rental cars were expensive in all three locations.  Considering both airfare and rental car rates, it worked out best to fly to Jacksonville and drive from there.

When I got to the airport, the line for bag drop was the longest I’ve ever seen it.  Apparently, the day after Christmas is the busiest travel day of the year.  Fortunately, I got to the airport really early.

When I got to Jacksonville, Alamo was out of cars.  I could either rent a truck or go to Avis, who agreed to match Alamo’s rates.  It took longer than usual, but I eventually got a car and started the two hour drive to Ocala.  Maybe traveling the day after Christmas wasn’t such a good idea after all.

The race venue is on the east side of Ocala, but most of the hotels are on the west side.  I think there are a couple of budget motels closer to the race venue, but I chose to stay at a hotel that’s 10 miles away, so I could have a kitchenette with a full-size refrigerator.  I’ll need to leave before the hotel starts its breakfast service, so I wanted to be able to buy groceries to fix my own breakfasts.  I also brought a loaf of home-made cinnamon bread from home.