Madison College Instructor Sees the Sights Through Marathons

Tourism 26.2: Let sneakers be your tour guide with a destination marathon

By ANDREA ZANI | azani[at] madison [dot] com | 608-252-6191 | Posted: Saturday, December 26, 2009 5:30 am /Wisconsin State Journal

When Susan Sweitzer of Middleton ran the Venice Marathon several years ago, the scenery was amazing.

“We ran through small villages and countryside,” she said of the point-to-point course that started miles away and finished in the heart of the Italian city. “Venice, of course, has all these canals, and they have a huge (pontoon) bridge they put up across the Grand Canal just for the race. It was neat.”

For Karen Wendler of Madison, the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco was one to remember.

“You’re overlooking Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge — you’re looking down on it,” she said of parts of the race course. “The scenery was gorgeous. We ran through Golden Gate State Park. We finished along the Pacific Ocean, which was beautiful.”

Sure, you can take a bus trip. A guided tour is nice.

But when it comes to seeing all the sights a city has to offer, there may be no better option than tourism 26.2 — running a marathon there, that is.

“It’s such a great way to see a city,” said Wendler, who has a 3:53 best in her 10 marathons, including such destination races as the Rock ’n’ Roll Arizona marathon in Phoenix and the St. Louis Marathon. Some she has run with her sister, Kathy Gerber of Chicago, and they’ve made it a “girlfriends getaway.” For others, Wendler has taken along her family, which includes four children and her husband, Steve.

“We try to stay a couple of days afterward,” said Wendler, 43. “The kids always want to go. It can get costly, but for St. Louis they did come along. We went to museums and the (Gateway) Arch.”

The post-race touring is great for her as a runner, she added. “At that point, you’re really in the mode of rest. You can relax. You can eat what you want.”

Sweitzer, 41, who has two boys ages 6 and 3, also said she has embraced the down time after the run on the marathon trips she has taken, including the Venice race in 1999 and the famed Boston Marathon four times.

“It’s fun because you feel like, ‘Oh, I’ve earned this vacation,’” said Sweitzer, whose Venice trip with her husband, David, included a week of touring afterward in the city and a visit to Italy’s ruggedly beautiful Amalfi Coast. “You really can kick back and enjoy it.”

Wendler said she has enjoyed traveling to different races so much, in fact, that she recently made it her long-term goal to run a marathon in every state.

“I’d run Chicago twice and Madison twice. I thought, ‘Why do the same ones over and over?’” said Wendler, a physician assistant for UW Health Verona. “A lot of it is about finding a place that’s nice to go that you haven’t been before. What a nice way to see other parts of the country.”

She said she trains properly for her marathons but doesn’t dwell on her race times too much, usually running about a 4-hour pace, and added that “finishing and enjoying it” are her priorities. She also relishes the health benefits of being a runner. “What a great way to be committed to staying fit.”

Sweitzer, who teaches marketing courses at Edgewood College and Madison Area Technical College, has added Ironman triathlons — a 140.6-mile swim, bike and run — to her own fitness resume. She’s done Madison’s Ironman Wisconsin twice (with an 11:29 best) and plans to do a half-Ironman in St. Croix in May. Her travel and race companion for that event will be Tara Osborn, co-owner of Middleton’s Endurance House, which offers training support for triathletes.

“We wanted to do a destination half-Ironman and we narrowed it down to a couple,” said Sweitzer, who also is traveling with a group of friends to the Rock ’n’ Roll Arizona running event in mid-January. “One (half-Ironman) in California was sold out. There was another one in Lubbock, Texas, and I vetoed that.”

So they settled on the U.S. Virgin Islands triathlon, which will be a fairly quick trip, Sweitzer said. “We’re only going to stay a day after. We just don’t have time away from jobs and family.”

Wendler also has to take family obligations into account when planning her races. She said she starts by deciding on about a two-week window, usually in spring and fall, when a marathon would work for her family’s schedule, then checks a race calendar to see what’s offered.

She already has covered most of the Midwest in her quest to run the United States, so planning “is going to get harder now” with fewer drivable destinations, she said. Still, she is hoping to check off two or three more states each year until she’s hit the whole country, with North Carolina’s scenic Outer Banks Marathon a possibility for fall 2010.

But she won’t stress over a timetable. “Whenever I achieve it, it’s fine.”

Wendler said she also has left room to deviate from her 50-state plan for a possible international trip down the road.

“My sister wants to run Dublin, Ireland, when she turns 50 (in a few years),” Wendler said. “It’s just fun to look ahead to see what’s next.”

Next? How about Antarctica? Now there’s a destination marathon for you.

Organized by Marathon Tours & Travel based in Boston, which specializes in race trips, the Antarctica Marathon is one of the world’s newest and most exotic marathon destinations. Thom Gilligan is race director for the marathon and also is president of Marathon Tours, which he founded in 1979, one of the first companies (now there are many) to specialize in marathon tourism.

For this native of Boston, where interest in marathons is practically congenital, it was the perfect way to combine his dual pursuits of running and travel.

“A lot of people in the travel industry don’t quite understand the idea of traveling around the world to run a marathon, but runners really do that,” said Gilligan, who has run more than 60 marathons — with a 2:30 best — in nearly every place imaginable.

When people book a trip through Marathon Tours, it covers everything on the travel end, Gilligan said. “We leave the training up to the runners.” Entry in the destination marathon is included, even if registration for the race already has closed to others.

“We have worldwide contacts with race directors,” said Gilligan, whose company books trips for up to 8,000 runners per year. “In many cases, we can guarantee entry in certain events that are hard to get into. We have blocks of entries.”

That Antarctica Marathon, though, is a special case. It’s so wildly popular that the trip, led by Gilligan, has reached its capacity of runners through 2012 (leaving plenty of time to train for 2013, of course). A big reason is that for many runners, it fulfills a goal of completing a marathon on each of the world’s seven continents.

“In 1995, I got this crazy idea to start the Antarctica Marathon,” Gilligan said. “After that first race, a few of the runners said that had given them marathons on seven continents.

“I thought, ‘That’s an interesting life goal for a runner.’”

Gilligan started a Seven Continents Club to encourage runners. He also watched in the next several years as many more marathons cropped up in fantastic destinations around the world.

“The Antarctica Marathon seemed to stimulate the market for a lot of exotic marathons,” he said. “Since then there’s been the Great Wall Marathon (in China), the Easter Island Marathon. ... I like the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya.”

Gilligan characterizes these as “adventure marathons, off the beaten path.”

“It also breaks through the touristy veneer,” he said. “You’re with the local people; you’re mixing a little sweat, a little agony.

“And, of course, there’s the thrill of finishing.”

But it’s just as much about the travel, seeing new places, as it is about the race, Gilligan said.

“The running is simply a catalyst for people to get to certain destinations,” he said. “Runners are driven by their recreational interest, much like scuba divers or bicyclists will use their activity to get them to special places. ... People are looking to combine a running event with their vacation dollars.”

Costs can vary widely, he said, depending on such travel details as length of stay and accommodations.

“You could go to Disney (for the Walt Disney World Marathon in Orlando, Fla.) and stay three nights in a budget hotel, or spend thousands of dollars on a deluxe cabin for a week at the Antarctica Marathon,” he said.

Naturally, in addition to cost considerations, there are challenges involved in planning and running a marathon in a different city. Time zones might be different or there could be elevation changes. Eating out can present problems.

And sometimes race day is not without its own unique difficulties. Sweitzer, at her Venice Marathon, recalled being given carbonated water instead of regular water to drink at aid stations.

“They handed us these bottles of sparkling water, you know, with carbonation,” said Sweitzer. “I took one drink and …”

Sweitzer said she thought it was going to be awful, no good hydration for her race. “I didn’t check nutrition and what they served on the course.”

But then she had a realization.

“I figured out you just pour off a little of the water and run with it,” she said. “The shaking takes out the carbonation.”

Sweitzer said things at the Venice Marathon certainly could be different now than when she ran there, but she advised being prepared to deal with unusual circumstances before and during a destination marathon.

“Obviously, you want to think through all the days your body needs to adjust to the food and the atmosphere,” she said. “Make sure you’re adjusting to (any) time difference and food differences.

“You have to understand what clothes to bring, how to dress, what to eat.”

Arriving a few days early for a marathon is advisable, and Wendler added another important tip for anyone going to a destination marathon by airplane: Keep your running gear in your carry-on luggage.

“We always have our running clothes and shoes and our race information in our carry-on,” she said.

Both women, though, said the bottom line in any marathon trip is simply to relish the experience.

Wendler said she loved the San Francisco race she did for its “extra goodies” on the course. “There was (San Francisco-made) Ghirardelli chocolate at the aid stations,” she said. And instead of a medal, “They give you a Tiffany’s pendant at the finish. … We stayed a couple of days after and toured the city, eating and shopping.”

Sweitzer cited great race support as another highlight of her Venice experience. “People really seemed to be cheering on the women (who were fewer in number),” she said, “especially when we passed a guy running.”

Added Sweitzer: “I think the biggest theme is each marathon or each destination has something unique. … There are so many cool marathons to do.”