Marathon Maniacs Bid....And my 4th State

10/10/10 is in just 4 days!!! But this post is about looking past the Chicago Marathon race day and on to my next challenge, likely the Amica Marathon in Newport, Rhode Island. If you look closely above (I know it's small), you'll see that the date of the Amica Marathon is 10/17/10. Wait! Aren't I doing a big, important, 'A' race on 10/10/10? Why, yes, I am. And this race is only 1 week later. Let's call it a recovery run, (or maybe a recovery run/walk?), or.....my qualifying race for the Marathon Maniacs! A few posts back, I wrote about this eccentric group of uber fit individuals who run marathons like it's their job. While there are many ways to qualify for this group, most realistically I will need the "easiest" way to qualify which is the Bronze Level:




My work schedule will NEVER allow me to get 3 marathons done in 90 days (at least for the next few years) so #1 it is: "2 Marathons within a 16 day time frame". So, Newport, Rhode Island, here I come!



Adam and I will be traveling to Boston and Maine (Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park, Portland) next week for vacation and since Newport, RI is only an hour from Boston, this works out perfectly! I initially wanted to do the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Acadia, but it sold out. The MDI marathon looks absolutely incredible (in the picture below, you can see it won #1 best marathon in the country according to Runner's World readers) and I hope to be back to do it in the next few years. I think the Amica marathon, though, is a great consolation prize!



I had never heard of this race before, mostly because Rhode Island is generally not on my radar of places I want to go. But as I started googling and marathon-guiding marathons within a short drive of our intended vacation destinations, Amica popped up. As I researched further, I was very pleased to see that the same ranking that put Mount Desert Island #1, ranked the Newport, Rhode Island marathon #4! Who knew! I looked at the course with Google Earth and can see why it is so well-liked. As the map below shows, the majority of the race is on residential streets along the coast, offering breathtaking views of the ocean. And, apparently, there are some beautiful homes in Newport, so those will be fun to see as well.

An additional bonus: since the Chicago Marathon may turn out to be a bit too warm for my taste (sunny and high of 78!), Newport should be nice and cool--> a true Fall marathon.




Last, but not least, Amica will give me my 4th state! As you may recall, a goal of mine is to run a marathon in all of the 50 states. And due to its small size, Rhode Island could pose a logistical challenge. But, assuming I don't wuss out, on October 17th I could qualify for Marathon Maniacs and check Rhode Island off my list! Sounds like a great start to a vacation to me! (Because then I can eat all I want for the rest of the week: lobsters, clam chowder, take cover, I will be HUNGRY!)

The only downside to Rhode Island is that it won't show up well on my map because it is so small. For my next marathon, maybe I should do a big state so my map looks more filled in!