August 31 – Puyallup WA
One nice thing I have stumbled across since I began peeking into the Marathon Maniac’s twisted little world is the “homegrown Marathon”. At about mile 10 during the Redmond Watershed Marathon Brian said “nature abhors a vacuum and Maniacs abhors a weekend without a marathon” (he also said “time flies like fruit and fruit flies likes bananas”; it took me several mile to sort that out). Maniacs like to run marathons EVERY weekend and occasionally there is a date that would require travelling quite far to get the weekly distance fix. So , Maniacs study the race calendar and organize their own events on the off dates. These marathons are really interesting in that each reflects the personality of its creator; of the two I have run one started at the director’s house and was entirely in the park near his house and the other had a coffee theme. Also, the field is usually small (approx. 30 participants), the support is minimal (the runners have to plan for much of their own logistics and supplies), and there is often a fair amount of route finding. Theses characteristics make the events low stress but might make things difficult for novice runners.
Michelle’s Grande Ass Marathon is certainly is one of these homegrown events. There were about 30 runners; Michelle says they are coffee drinkers with a running problem. The run started at a Starbucks in Puyallup and ran Starbucks to Starbucks through Sumner, Fife, and to the Ruston neighborhood in Tacoma. At each Starbucks (5 total) we arrived to have our photo taken for check-in.
They had water, some gels, and even two or three people cheering! The many (…many) route intersections had white chalk arrows and the particularly tricky corners actually had the race’s “route director” pointing the way.
And of course, there are often many things to see over the course of 26 miles. Most of my running is on trails and offers tremendous Pacific Northwest scenery, but this one was all in and between towns. Nevertheless, among the many interesting sights was a fish feeding frenzy – it
appears to have been opening day beginning the frenzied attack against some unsuspecting of species of river swimmer; sure looks like fun (of course the rod wielders were probably looking just as us runners with the same lack of connection)! Finally, I cannot underestimate the interesting sights that urban running offers. A wilderness runner can find himself fascinated peering into store fronts and reading billboards. Thumbs up for Michelle’s Grande Ass Marathon!
For info: http://marathonfreak.com/grandeass/
One nice thing I have stumbled across since I began peeking into the Marathon Maniac’s twisted little world is the “homegrown Marathon”. At about mile 10 during the Redmond Watershed Marathon Brian said “nature abhors a vacuum and Maniacs abhors a weekend without a marathon” (he also said “time flies like fruit and fruit flies likes bananas”; it took me several mile to sort that out). Maniacs like to run marathons EVERY weekend and occasionally there is a date that would require travelling quite far to get the weekly distance fix. So , Maniacs study the race calendar and organize their own events on the off dates. These marathons are really interesting in that each reflects the personality of its creator; of the two I have run one started at the director’s house and was entirely in the park near his house and the other had a coffee theme. Also, the field is usually small (approx. 30 participants), the support is minimal (the runners have to plan for much of their own logistics and supplies), and there is often a fair amount of route finding. Theses characteristics make the events low stress but might make things difficult for novice runners.
Michelle’s Grande Ass Marathon is certainly is one of these homegrown events. There were about 30 runners; Michelle says they are coffee drinkers with a running problem. The run started at a Starbucks in Puyallup and ran Starbucks to Starbucks through Sumner, Fife, and to the Ruston neighborhood in Tacoma. At each Starbucks (5 total) we arrived to have our photo taken for check-in.
They had water, some gels, and even two or three people cheering! The many (…many) route intersections had white chalk arrows and the particularly tricky corners actually had the race’s “route director” pointing the way.And of course, there are often many things to see over the course of 26 miles. Most of my running is on trails and offers tremendous Pacific Northwest scenery, but this one was all in and between towns. Nevertheless, among the many interesting sights was a fish feeding frenzy – it
appears to have been opening day beginning the frenzied attack against some unsuspecting of species of river swimmer; sure looks like fun (of course the rod wielders were probably looking just as us runners with the same lack of connection)! Finally, I cannot underestimate the interesting sights that urban running offers. A wilderness runner can find himself fascinated peering into store fronts and reading billboards. Thumbs up for Michelle’s Grande Ass Marathon!For info: http://marathonfreak.com/grandeass/
