The Year in Summary
Riding high on the success of 2013 we started off 2014 the same way with a marathon in January and one in February. By this point we had completed 17 States, which while amazing, still left 33 to go. Due to various personal reasons we wanted to run more than 12 a year as we couldn’t have the challenge taking another 3 years, so we decided to start really attacking the numbers.
In March we ran 3 Marathons within 14 days across back-to-back weekends, achieving sub 4s in all 3. It broke us, possibly literally. We completed 2 more marathons in April and that was it, we had to rest. We didn’t run once for 6 weeks, hoping to fix our injuries. Then in June we had Alaska which we didn’t want to back out of. We went straight back into it and fought through a lot of pain due to the fitness we’d lost. After that we went back to our model of 1 per month for July and August.
From September we started to again increase the rate at which we ran the marathons but allowed ourselves an extra 30 minutes of pacing to try to make the race and recovery less stressful. 50 States was always the goal, Sub 4 in them all was a secondary stretch goal. This didn’t work either, by deliberately running slower than the pace that felt natural we were altering our running style which created further muscular injuries.
We went back to running at a natural pace and frequently pushing for the sub 4. We ran 11 marathons between September and the beginning of December, making a total of 21 during 2014 across 19 new States.
Races and Individual Reports
Marathon #31, State #16 : Louisiana Marathon 2014
19th January 2014, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
3 hours 52 minutes
Marathon #32, State #17 : Mercedes Marathon 2014
16th February 2014, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
3 hours 44 minutes
Marathon #33, State #18 : Little Rock Marathon 2014
2nd March 2014, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA
3 hours 51 minutes
Marathon #34, State #19 : Lower Potomac River Marathon 2014
9th March 2014, Piney Point, Maryland, USA
3 hours 52 minutes
Marathon #35, State #20 : Wrightsville Beach Marathon 2014
16th March 2014, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, USA
3 hours 55 minutes
Marathon #36, State #21 : St. Louis Marathon 2014
6th April 2014, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
3 hours 55 minutes
Marathon #37 : London Marathon 2014
13th April 2014, London, UK
4 hours 25 minutes
Marathon #38, State #22 : Mayor’s Midnight Sun Marathon 2014
21st June 2014, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
3 hours 57 minutes / 4 hours 17 minutes
Marathon #39, State #23 : Missoula Marathon 2014
13th July 2014, Missoula, Montana, USA
3 hours 57 minutes
Marathon #40, State #24 : Run With The Horses Marathon 2014
16th August 2014, Green River, Wyoming, USA
4 hours 19 minutes
Marathon #41, State #25 : Sioux Falls Marathon 2014
7th September 2014, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA
3 hours 57 minutes
Marathon #42, State #26 : Bismarck Marathon 2014
20th September 2014, Bismarck, North Dakota, USA
4 hours 22 minutes
Marathon #43, State #27 : Monument Marathon 2014
27th September 2014, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, USA
4 hours 24 minutes
Marathon #44, State #28 : Lakefront Marathon 2014
5th October 2014, Milwaukee, Wisconsin USA
4 hours 19 minutes
Marathon #45, State #29 : Hartford Marathon 2014
11th October 2014, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
3 hours 56 minutes
Marathon #46, State #30 : LOCO Marathon 2014
26th October 2014, Newmarket, New Hampshire, USA
3 hours 55 minutes
Marathon #47, State #31 : Marshall University Marathon 2014
2nd November 2014, Huntington, West Virginia, USA
3 hours 55 minutes
Marathon #48, State #32 : Tri States Marathon 2014
8th November 2014, Mesquite, Nevada, USA
3 hours 55 minutes
Marathon #49, State #33 : Pilgrim Pacer Marathon 2014
15th November 2014, Shawnee, Kansas, USA
4 hours 16 minutes
Marathon #50, State #34 : Seattle Marathon 2014
30th November 2014, Seattle, Washington, USA
3 hours 52 minutes
Marathon #51 : Quarry Lakes Marathon 2014
6th December 2014, Fremont, California, USA
4 hours 42 minutes