50 Marathons/50 States/50 Days
Tomorrow (Sunday) in St. Charles, Missouri, superman endurance freak Dean Karnazes kicks off his campaign to run 50 marathons in 50 USA states, in 50 successive days. He ends the tour at the New York Marathon on November 5 and will have completed 1310 miles in the process. If you live in the States, check out the official event site (aside: looks like some web designers just learned about Flash - someone take their authoring tools away from them - they've abused the privilege) to see when he is visiting your area. Inside the continental 48 states, he'll be travelling with his parents, wife and kids in a fleet that includes an RV and a travel bus. The most grueling travel segment looks to be the four days of the Alaska-San Francisco-Maui-Phoenix legs! He's blogging throughout the tour if you want to follow his thoughts.
Before I go on about Dean, you should probably know that another guy, Sam Thompson already quietly finished his own 50/50/50 marathon campagin this summer, to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims. It's apparently not a competitive situation, as both runners acknowledge that the pie is big enough for both of them to share, and they actually have the same sponsor (North Face). Also, both of them admit that this feat could have been previously done by others; nobody knows.
Rock and rollers will remember that George Thorogood and The Destroyers did their own 50/50/50 concert tour in 1981, travelling the 48 continental states in a Checker car! I don't believe this feat has been duplicated by any touring band since.
So how does Dean's campaign work? First on Sundays during the 50-day span, he is entered in real marathon events, including US flagship races like Chicago, New York, and the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC (Sun's own MaryMary is also an entrant here). On the other six days of the week, he runs sanctioned marathon courses with whomever wants to run with him, complete with police escort. You'll have to pay for that privilege, and at US $100, it ain't cheap!
Dean Karnazes is not fast by today's elite running standards but he is the real deal when it comes to endurance. Just this summer, he completed some brutal ultramarathon races, including the Leadville (Colorado) 100mi, Badwater (Death Valley) 146mi, Western States 100 (Squaw Valley, CA) events, and he outright won the Vermont 100. Most seasoned runners would be glad to finish just one of these in a lifetime. Given the miles he has already put in, I have no doubt that he can do 26.2 miles a day in his prescribed 4.5 to 5 hour allotment. He has hired Lance Armstrong's trainer, Chris Carmichael for diet recommendations to help his daily recovery, so he should be all set.
Karnazes has said that he's doing this to promote fitness, health, and outdoor activity given the oft-mentioned USA struggles with obesity. No problem with that, and the sport of long distance running needs all the publicity it can get. I'd like to see, however, the USA's elite distance runners get more attention but they don't have Dean's marketing machine that has landed him on Letterman, 60 Minutes, in GQ and Esquire magazines, etc. How many Americans have heard of Meb Keflezighi, Alan Culpepper, or Deena Kastor? It's different in other countries, like in the UK where Paula Radcliffe is a national star, of perhaps LeBron James fame proportions here in the US.
Finally, it's a free world but you have to wonder if Dean Karnaze's obsessive-compulsive tendencies will take him past his limits. He's talking about pedalling a Hydro Bronc across the Pacific Ocean, from California to Hawaii, and also paddling 40 miles around the white shark-infested waters of the Farallon Islands (off California) on a surfboard. And much riskier - he wants to climb Mt. Everest with no oxygen or transport assistance. It's a question the Crocodile Hunter had to answer all the time, but what's the balancing point between the next risky endeavor and maintaining the existing family life that he's built? For a guy like Karnazes who has admitted that "he can't sit still", let's see if he'll know when to stop.
Posted at 04:11PM Sep 16, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport |