The Extra Mile
Running Around During a Vacation
|
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
"Fun-in-the-sun vacations just don't do it for runners," said Thom Gilligan, president of Marathon Tours & Travel in Boston. "We're Type-A personalities and we feel a need to be active, even on vacation."
What started as simple travel arrangements Gilligan made for friends coming to the Boston Marathon in the late 1970s has morphed into the running industry's best-known travel agency, which today sends runners to every part of the globe.
During the intervening decades, "destination marathon" has become a term of art indicating an event that attracts runners for its setting as much as for the race itself. With nearly 500,000 runners finishing marathons in the United States annually, the destinations stand to benefit substantially from these itinerant tourists.
And while events such as the Disney Marathon in Orlando, the Wineglass Marathon in Corning, N.Y., and Big Sur along the California coast have established themselves as attractive venues for runners and their families, the practice has gone international as well. If you're training for a marathon, the thinking goes, why not run it in Paris, London or even Venice, where St. Mark's Square will never look as ethereal as when it's your finish line?
"The race can be a catalyst for travel," Gilligan said, "and the race then becomes part of the adventure. Participation in a marathon helps runners break through the tourist veneer."
Major cities are obvious choices and marathons throughout Europe host runners in the tens of thousands, much as last week's marathon in Chicago, today's in Washington and next week's in New York. But more exotic locales, including the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya, the Great Wall Marathon in China and the Easter Island Marathon -- 2,000 miles from the South American Pacific coast, and "definitely a niche market marathon," Gilligan said -- have grown increasingly popular among runners whose pace is determined by a very different drummer.
The inaugural Antarctica Marathon in 1995 made running a marathon on all seven continents possible, and since then nearly 200 runners have checked that off their life to-do lists. Marathon Tours sponsors the trip, which sails from Tierra del Fuego on research vessels. Bad weather in 2005 kept the ships from docking on the White Continent, so participants ran 26.2 miles on deck. No trip was planned for this year. It is sold out for 2007 and 2008, but there is a waiting list for 2008.
ยท HOLY COW: For all of the reasons noted above and more, I am in northeast India today starting the Himalayan Run & Trek, a five-day, 100-mile stage race. Which surely takes this reporting business at least 100 miles too far.
-- Jim Hage
