Heavy Metal

zman — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:02:00 GMT

My code isn't working and I need a distraction so here's something I've been meaning to do for a while. Budget for the Rock and Roll/Elite Racing Heavy Metal medal series.

As you all well know though I love my running I am unlikely to ever have the time or desire to win anything unless I can somehow stay alive and fit longer than everyone else and one day win the over 90 category in some race. So I get my kicks by just enjoying other peoples reactions when you tell them you ran crazy distances and by getting medals. (click the pictures to see all the medals annotated - cool flickr feature). Yes those are Goofy ears on the display case - I made them myself.

There's only one thing better than a single medal for a race and that's bonus medals that you get for doing more than one. I've talked about the 'its not really free' medal that I got for running the Disney half and Full back to back in the goofy race - Disney even give you a bonus medal if you do the East and West coast Disney races. However the big medal multiplier out there is the one done by Elite Racing who run the Rock and Roll series of marathons in what they call the Heavy Medal Series.

By my reckoning you can get 12 bonus medals for running 9 races - that's 21 medals for about 40 hours of race day work... I've seen these things at marathon expos and some of them really deserve the title of 'heavy'

Of course this doesn't come cheap because there's 9 races to pay for and 8 of them involve flying for me so one year I suspect this will be all the racing I do. Of course there's 2 plane tickets since I need to bring my personal support team. Thankfully she doesn't require her own hotel room too.

So here's how much it would cost one person from Seattle to pull this off assuming I get early registration on all races.

Jan: 26.2/13.1 Phoenix AZ, $105 race fee, $250 air
Apr: 26.2/13.1 Nashville, TN, $85 race fee, $350 air
May: 26.2 San Diego, CA, $90 race fee, $320 air
June: 26.2/13.1 Seattle, WA, $95 race fee, no air or hotel ;-)
August: 13.1 Chicago, IL, $65 race fee, $360 air
September (6th): 13.1 Virginia Beach, VA, $75 race fee, $420 air
September (20th): 13.1 Philadelphia, PA, $60 race fee, $420 air
October, 13.1 San Jose, CA, $75 race fee, $250 air
November 26.2/13.1 San Antonio, TX, $85 race fee, $400 air

Total race fees: $735

Total air cost: $2770

2 nights hotel in 8 of those cities at approx $150 per night: $2400

Grand total for one person $5905....

Take along a friend to ring the cow bells who will probably run several of the races and share the hotel room: $9025 or ($4500 per person)

Ok so if you plan your flights right you can get a long weekend in each city which means a couple of days of sight seeing too but $10k buys me a pretty nice vacation or some 1st class tickets to the UK to see my family. Of course my family won't give me 21 medals and of course they are so used to me running now that I don't get those great looks when I say I ran 5 marathons and 4 half marathons in one year (interesting - this year I will run 5 full marathons and 3 half marathons so the rock & roll series isn't as tough as it sounds other than the travel and the cost).

So 2009 already is looking planned for races so it will be 2010 before I can actually do this... they will probably have 10 or 11 races by then!

Zman's Diary : rock and roll marathon, elite racing

Heavy Metal