Medal Monday brings many stories of achievement for our members. Here are recent stories from the Marathon Maniacs and Half Fanatics, as told by you, as posted on the Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics Facebook pages.
Jason Dennis (MM15469) – medalmonday: Got this bling + fresh jambalaya, gumbo at the finish line of yesterday’s The Louisiana Marathon in Baton Rouge, state #26 and my 3rd fastest marathon so far (chip time of 4:08:23). The course for the sold out race went through LSU early on.
Brad Garfinkel (MM4955) –Daufuskie Island (South Carolina) Marathon
Lea Reyes (MM13731, DA2891, HF16015) – Bahamas Marathon. What an amazing ride. I have never raced a more challenging marathon than the Bahamas Nassau. 74° at 6 AM with 85% humidity or so. I was drenched with sweat and moisture by mile two it was that humid. The Bahamians are the nicest people I have met at a race. They are very respectful, polite, nice, and were excited about this race. They cheered us on at the water stations and danced. It was awesome. It’s important to them, especially the 5k pink run. The course was absolutely beautiful and takes you along the coast around amazing coastal areas. The ocean was absolutely beautiful and the scenery was breathtaking. While this race kicked my you know what, I still had a great time and took in every breath of it. I just thought about how blessed I am to be able to run in such beautiful places surrounded by awesome people and my fellow runners.
Lawrence Allie (MM16034) – Marathon Bahamas!
Eric Tunquist- (MM16044) – Carlsbad (CA) Marathon. One of the prettiest and best organized races out there.
Kerri Haskins (MM1336, DA836, HF8724) – Louisiana Marathon Baton Rouge Louisiana.
Bill McBrayer (MM7668, DA521, HF3651) – I completed the Coast-to-Coast Challenge, having completed the Dopey Challenge last weekend, and the Disneyland Half today.
Charlotte Corriher (MM3514) – Key West Half
Laurie Weiner (MM15681, DA3668, HF9266) – Disneyland Half Marathon
Yvette Powell (MM7228, DA480, HF1963) – Louisiana Marathon
Sarah Modlin (MM16050, DA3774, HF18797) – Houston! Additionally, I was able to level up this weekend! 6 half marathons and 6 marathons in 6 months!
Hank Lopez (MM14044, DA3029, HF16561) – Jekyll Island Marathon #96!
Gaye Renouf (MM494) – Bermuda Triangle Challenge- fantastic!
William Dale Seaton (MM14584) – Daufuskie Island Marathon
Bryon Solberg (MM12350) – MedalMonday – 23 Years In The Making at the Carlsbad Marathon
**It was so special today to honor the lives and legacies of two wonderful ladies… Christa Swanson’s Mom Judy and the founder of In Motion Events Lynn Flanagan.
**Thank you to their families for letting us have the pictures on the banner so they could “cross the finish line with us.”
Kristin McLendon (MM15954) – Jekyll Island marathon with a 7 minute PR!
Karen Hohertz-Jacobs (MM15430, DA3716, HF18668) – Melissa Hohertz Foat (MM15657) – and I ran the Jekyll Island marathon!!
Andrea Bertagnolli Gronewold (MM15577) –Gorgeous weather for
Mobile Marathon presented by Infirmary Health in Mobile, Alabama!
Lisa Vezzetti (MM4467) – Bandera 50k in Texas Hill Country! Yeehaw!!
JM Gabriel (MM9970, DA3730, HF18690) – Houston Half
Jeric Martin (HF17517) – Just hit 25 with the Carlsbad Half Marathon this past weekend!
Jen D’Italia (HF380) – I have been a Half Fanatic since 2010 and over the years have slowly made my way from Neptune to Jupiter 🪐 to Venus to Mercury, where I had been since 2016.
2020 derailed a lot of race plans and put a damper on my love of running for a bit, but once I regained my momentum in late 2022 I started adding on the half marathons, with my goal of hitting my 300th Half sometime during 2023.
It wasn’t until I added a race that threw off my originally planned 300th that I realized that I had 40 half marathons booked… and then reasoned, What’s 12 more? 😆 And so my Sun goal began, about 1/3 of the way through the necessary 52.
On January 14th I hit Sun ☀️ at my 52nd half marathon in 50 weeks at the Carlsbad Half Marathon. 🥳 I am so thankful to the awesome Barbara and Rachel for their support and company and friendship this past year, bouncing around each other on the Leaderboard 😏; appreciative of those in my life who don’t run but encourage me; and so grateful for my health and the ability to run all the half marathons I did to achieve this goal. I’m also very lucky to have had mostly perfect weather conditions at every race (I can only think of 2 that had some rain) and no travel or health snafus that derailed my plans.
As for the 52 half marathons, I was also lucky, as there were only a few I did just to hit Sun that I didn’t really enjoy, and I was able to do almost all of the races in California, driving to them – there were just two plane flights involved (including this final weekend). Altogether my races were in:
- California: 49
- Nevada: 1
- Arizona: 1
- Utah: 1
Looking forward to continuing this running journey and forging ahead with some new goals and adventures.
Jen
HF 380
Photo and Post Credit Marathon Maniacs/Half Fanatics Facebook Pages
Discover more from ManiacsFanaticsMadness
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.