So I decided to group these 3 events together because they have a story in itself. This was my 3rd year for The Last Chance for Boston run in Columbus Ohio but I really do love the event....most when you tell about it sigh and can't imagine running 26 1 mile loops around an industrial park but in reality it is fun! You pass the aid station, porta potties and the supporter 26 times too!!! Weather is never the same even though its the last weekend of Feb but I have don't it with a short sleeve shirt on after a couple laps, I've done it with a buff and heavy running jacket and this year was just nice and comfy. So here's how these events all come as a grouping. I had talked a friend into doing the Dirty Double Trail Marathon on march 8th but then about a week before Last Chance I kept telling her you know if you do the Last Chance and the Dirty Double you will qualify for Marathon Maniacs.....she didn't give in right away but a couple more times of discussing it I received a text with her sign up info :) We didn't have to worry about housing as my brother and his family live close by so we stayed there....as we were driving to Columbus Heather spilled the beans we could leave anytime for the Dirty Double that was in TN due to her being on Spring Break....( she is a math professor at the local university) Oh....this was a mistake- I smiled and I said you know.....there is a run the day before the Dirty Double called Kings Mountain in SC...I have a couple friends trying to get me to come but I told them we were riding together and if I commit to another it would have to be a family situation that would make me have cancel or change plans. So I continued to tell her about the run on Saturday and then called another maniac to help presuade (which didn't take much ) I knew it would be good for me as I had Zion 100 coming up April 5th and wanted another double before doing RnR USA and Tobacco Rd in March. We had such a cold winter at home that I knew if I didn't get down south a little bit I would not suck it up and get my long back to backs done like I needed to. So the rationalization was this.....ok...so you will do last chance today and to qualify you need 2 marathons in 16 days...so you do Kings Mountain first on that Saturday and it doesn't have a time limit so take you time and WHAM you are now a maniac.....the dirty double it a trail and will be easier on your joints but did have a time limit so if something did go wrong you already are a maniac and if things went well then you come in as a 4 star maniac plus you have an extra state to boot! We didn't inform her that each of these runs were about 4000 feet of climbing :) I will say SHE MADE IT SHE DID ALL THREE!!!!
We stayed together for the entire Last Chance run and 2 weeks later we headed to SC....there we met my great friend David Wingard and we all shared a room, at packet pickup we ran into some other maniacs and got to introduce Heather as a future maniac when this event was over! This was all road and lots of ups and downs but really a pretty run,We all ended up talking other into coming on over to TN for the dirty double and I believe there was 5 of us that did both these events and we ran into another maniac that had done the marathon at Land Between the Lakes the day before in KY...that was a muddy mess from what I heard! We were all so proud of Heather and she just glowed! This was the start of joining into the madness of us marathon maniacs.....It really is a special breed and you can usually tell who is going to become part of you extended family very quickly :)
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