This got me to thinking about how many I'd done and what actually counts and I came to the realisation that my outlook on it had changed massively in the past 12 months.
I don't actually know anyone personally in the UK who has run 100 marathons but there are a lot. There is a significant group of runners on the UK circuit trying to run as many official marathon length races as possible. I don't think I've ever run a UK road race without seeing members of the 100 marathon club running in their club vests with a degree of pride and rightly so, it is an impressive achievement.
Something I struggle with now though is the idea of racing every week literally up and down the length of the country, simply to get your 'number' up. There is so much chat at the start of the countless uninspiring road marathons there are to choose from nowadays (Luton, Wolverhampton, Leicester etc etc) about how many races someone has done and where they will be for the next few weeks. For those people it is a community. Marathons have become their weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly catch up with friends and an opportunity to get in a run and tick another one off of the list. Honestly I can see why they would want to do it, after all there is always a sense of achievement when you finish a marathon whether you've done 1 or 1000 plus if you are running with friends then of course its much more enjoyable than doing a training run on your own for 4 hours. However travelling all weekend and spending £100s to go and start a race in October on a sodden road around suburban ring roads is now utterly pointless to me. It wasn't a couple of years ago.
From the time we ran the Marathon Des Sables in 2006, through to the Gobi March over 1 year later, I ran zero marathons or races of any length. It didn't even cross my mind to enter one. Id run one, i'd proved to myself i could do it and I didn't care about it. When I finished the Gobi however I realised that when people spoke to me about running they always asked me what my best marathon time was. I wasn't happy with my time so I started running to try and get it down (probably the most boring thing I've ever trained for). Then people started asking me how many i'd run and I realised I could only actually say 2 or 3 and again I was met with an 'oh I thought you were a serious runner'. Well it took me over a year to wonder why I was bothered about any of this. Its all totally irrelevant. About 90% of people won't know the difference or care even the slightest bit whether your marathon PB is 3 hours 52 or 2 hours 58. They won't care whether you've run 10 marathons or 100. And to the other 10%, the numbers do have meaning but honestly who actually cares? Last year I went through periods of running races for the sake of it, I didn't travel particularly far to run any one race but I spent a long time working out where I could squeeze a pointless regional road marathon in just to add '1' to the list rather than going somewhere I loved training and fitting it in around the 100 other important things that the pointless race overtook.
Certainly right now I can't see myself running any other crappy road marathons in the UK, ever. The exception being if its within a few miles of home and Im running with a friend. I reckon that will bring me out at around 2 or 3 per year. In contrast I will continue to run as many races offering epic tests of endurance, incredible scenery or just huge experiences as possible and Im still as PUMPED as ever to get out there and do that. I've had next years races planned out in my mind for a while and I'm entered into about 70% of them already, now its about waiting for the lotteries again to see which of the big boy 100 milers I get places....
So totally hypocritically after saying I don't care, yesterday I counted how many marathons according to standard 100 marathon club t's and c's which frankly are utterly ridiculous (eg. you only get to count 1 for any race ie. Badwater is 1 marathon not 5, desert races you can only include runs that are exactly 26.2 miles or longer etc etc) I've run and the answer is exactly 50. How about that. I would trade every single road marathon Ive ever run for any one of my desert medals but I'm not complaining about reaching 50 it seems ironic that I passed a milestone at Badwater and didn't realise it after being 'into it' last year. Maybe I'll reach 100 in a few years time, more likely I'll reach it in about 4 - 5 given that out of 10 races entered for next year and all but 1 of them is over 45 miles and thats the way I think it'll probably stay for a good while....
| Date | Title | Distance | Unit | Outcome |
| 12/07/2010 | Badwater | 135 | miles | 39:19:00 |
| 20/06/2010 | South Downs Way Challenge Day 3 | 35 | miles | 06:14:00 |
| 19/06/2010 | South Downs Way Challenge Day 2 | 35 | miles | 06:01:00 |
| 12/06/2010 | South Downs Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:44:00 |
| 08/05/2010 | Orpington Marafun | 26.2 | miles | 03:20:55 |
| 02/05/2010 | Three Forts Marathon | 27 | miles | 03:13:24 |
| 25/04/2010 | Shakespeare Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:12:23 |
| 28/03/2010 | Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 3 | 26.2 | miles | 05:48:00 |
| 27/03/2010 | Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 2 | 26.2 | miles | 05:04:39 |
| 26/03/2010 | Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 1 | 26.2 | miles | 04:49:00 |
| 20/03/2010 | Washington DC - National Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 02:58:07 |
| 07/03/2010 | Steyning Stinger Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 05:55:00 |
| 13/02/2010 | The London Ultra 50K | 50 | km | 04:25:00 |
| 24/01/2010 | Winter Tanners 30 | 30 | miles | 05:08:00 |
| 16/01/2010 | Country to Capital | 45 | miles | 08:06:00 |
| 03/01/2010 | Stansted Stagger Rescheduled Date | 26.2 | miles | 03:59:00 |
| 29/10/2009 | Sahara Race - Stage 5 | 54 | miles | 12:20:50 |
| 27/10/2009 | Sahara Race - Stage 3 | 26.4 | miles | 06:31:26 |
| 26/10/2009 | Sahara Race - Stage 2 | 27 | miles | 06:24:05 |
| 11/10/2009 | Leicester Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:26:14 |
| 20/09/2009 | London to Brighton Trail Run | 56 | miles | 11:02:00 |
| 06/09/2009 | Kent Coastal Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:37:00 |
| 28/06/2009 | Herts Hobble Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 04:28:12 |
| 06/06/2009 | Old Dominion 100 | 100 | miles | 24:58:00 |
| 10/05/2009 | Halstead Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:44:30 |
| 03/05/2009 | Three Forts Marathon | 27 | miles | 03:52:21 |
| 26/04/2009 | Valley & Views | 26.2 | miles | 04:23:32 |
| 19/04/2009 | Bungay Black Dog Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:09:11 |
| 01/03/2009 | Steyning Stinger Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:46:30 |
| 07/02/2009 | Rocky Raccoon 100 | 100 | miles | 22:54:32 |
| 17/01/2009 | Thames Path Ultra | 50 | miles | 07:49:17 |
| 19/10/2008 | Amsterdam Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:18:23 |
| 05/10/2008 | London to Brighton Trail Run | 56 | miles | 11:40:00 |
| 07/09/2008 | Wolverhampton marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:26:01 |
| 14/06/2008 | South Downs Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:42:04 |
| 11/05/2008 | Halstead Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:33:27 |
| 04/04/2008 | Atacama Crossing - Stage 5 | 45.4 | miles | 11:51:57 |
| 03/04/2008 | Atacama Crossing - Stage 4 | 26.4 | miles | 07:02:20 |
| 01/04/2008 | Atacama Crossing - Stage 2 | 26.2 | miles | 06:08:42 |
| 17/02/2008 | Draycote Water 35 | 35 | miles | 05:22:40 |
| 19/01/2008 | Thames Path Ultra | 50 | miles | 08:24:00 |
| 02/12/2007 | Luton Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:38:29 |
| 27/10/2007 | Snowdonia Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:37:11 |
| 16/09/2007 | Robin Hood Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:28:07 |
| 21/06/2007 | Gobi March - Stage 5 | 49.1 | miles | 15:03:11 |
| 20/06/2007 | Gobi March - Stage 4 | 29.3 | miles | 08:30:05 |
| 14/04/2006 | 21e MdS - Stage 5 | 26.2 | miles | 08:20:49 |
| 12/04/2006 | 21e MdS - Stage 4 | 44.4 | miles | 14:06:52 |
| 28/01/2006 | Tring2Town | 45 | miles | 10:34:00 |
| 04/12/2005 | Luton Marathon | 26.2 | miles | 03:52:02 |
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