It all started over a year ago when Suzanne Kairy and Dennis Murphy were driving to Santa Clarita to run a marathon. Yes, running marathons is exciting to look forward to, plan for, and accomplish. But these two wanted to add something more to their racing and decided to start the Marathon-a-Month Club. Todd Byers naturally joined the club because he is already an unofficialEmarathon maniac in his own right. The next 6 months found these three runners plotting, planning, traveling, and finishing at least one marathon each month.
Sadly, Dennis had to drop out of the club early in June, due to injuries. He wrote about his experiences and feelings in several newsletters this summer. But Suzanne and Todd Byers bravely carried on their goal. Several months, and many travel adventures later, Suzanne dropped out of the club just short of her goal, for personal reasons. She displayed great tenacity and flexibility, along with spending a good deal of money, and it was unfortunate that she wasnt able to finish out the year. But what a tremendous effort she made! Also, Katrin Troeger (a member who runs races with us, but not regularly on Sundays or Wednesdays) completed 12 marathons in 8 different months.
So, here we are at the end of December, with the lone Marathon a Monther, Todd Byers, and he deserves kudos for finishing many more marathons than one a month. He even ran at least 12 of them barefoot! In all, he completed 19 marathons, in 8 different states (including Washington, DC).
All three of these brave, ambitious people have stories to tell about their attempt at the Marathon-a-Month goal, and would probably be happy to share them over a pint, or a coke, on any Wednesday night at Limericks.
In fact, Suzanne had such a great time at her attempt this year that she is going to give it another go in 2005, and I am going to join her. If anyone else wants to join in running one marathon a month and is interested in sharing travel, or hotel expenses, contact one of us. And good luck in 2005 no matter what your personal running goals happen to be, just keep on doing what feels good!! Happy New Year, AREC!