A few days ago, there was a terrific article in USA Today about travel running: running as a way to see the sights when you’re on vacation. You might think that what Bill and I did as we quested to run a marathon on every continent was the kind of travel running referenced in the article. Actually, while the marathon routes we chose did take us through some pretty spectacular places (the Weskus National Park, Old Panama City, the Mudgee Vineyards), “travel running” is something different altogether.
Moi on the Great Ocean Walk in Australia!
I didn’t write about it much in Second Wind, but Bill and I do quite a bit of travel running in addition to our racing when we travel. We’ve run through the Saguaro National Park in Arizona, for example. We chose a route that might take us past memorable land marks and then we went for it at a leisurely pace. When we run for sight-seeing, we always take water along–and a couple of granola bars. We walk when we feel inclined. We stop to read signs and take pictures. And we cover a lot of ground in a fraction of the time we could if we were walking or even taking taxis. We’ve done this in Australia on the Great Ocean Walk. We’ve also done it at the Grand Canyon (11 miles along the South Rim of the Canyon), at the Organ Pipe National Monument, in the Joshua Tree National Park, on the circuit of monuments in Washington DC (Jefferson, Lincoln, etc.), on parts of the trail along the W in Torres del Paine, Chile, along the greenways in Tokyo, through downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil into Ibirapuera Park, atop the Sea Wall in Vancouver, BC, and so on…. It’s fun.
What are your favorite travel running routes? Which routes take you on a quick sight-seeing tour and give you the flavor of a place? It’s long been a dream of ours to travel with a handful of other runners to do spontaneous runs of the marathon distance or longer along trails and through the national parks of the world. Where do you dream about running?
I have dreams of travel running. I have dreams of going to London, or Scotland, running through the country side and visiting some of the old castles, along some of the cliffs. I have places in the US, the Grand Canyon in particular that I’d love to visit. I have cities that I want to get to, Boston and Eugene to run Marathons in. I’d love to run some more in off beaten trails here in Washington. I have a lot of dreams that I know will one day come to fruition.
I also started compiling your marathons. I have 17 that were on your Athlinks. I will start converting them to an average and just set up an equation for when I get the rest of your times!
Brandon, you’re the best. If you found 17 on athlinks, I think there are about 10 others. I have to figure out which ones I’m missing. I think I have a document that have most of them on it.
Scotland would be great. We’ve talked about doing the West Highland Way and running whichever parts of it are runnable. Maybe we should plan a group trip–after you graduate.
I would love to be a part of that trip! I can list the one’s that I do have.
Prague Marathon 03
Mudgee Marathon 07
Whidbey Island 08
Panama Marathon 08
Weskus Marathon 09
Rio Marathon 09
Okanogan Marathon 09
Birch Bay Marathon 10
Coeur D’Alene Marathon 10
Humpy’s Marathon 10
Portland Marathon 10
RNR Las Vegas Marathon 10
Park City Marathon 11
Santa Rosa Marathon 11
Lost Dutchman Marathon 12
Estes Park Marathon 12
Green River Marathon 12
OH, that’s fun to see them listed out that way. Two of the races I count as marathons were actually ultras, so we don’t want those times figured in, do we? I’ll get you the others soon.
Run the Great Wall of China Marathon! Not only do you see the amazing sights but it’s so unique that it’s truly a run any runner would like to put on their bucket list! Let me know if you want any details or special savings as I was the one who organized and created this specific run tour!