Australian marathon sweep

In the USA they have a 50 Club for those who have completed a marathon in each of their states. That’s a pretty impressive number of marathons! There are multiple marathons on lots of weekends and thousands of people all competing. There are also companies in the USA whose business revolves around giving runners opportunities to complete the 50 states in an efficient manner, such as putting on marathons of 5km loops in towns all within an easy drive of one another but in different states.

In Australia we only have eight states and territories. The Northern Territory and Tasmania each have only two marathons per year. It takes a fair bit of planning to run a marathon in each Australian state when the choices in NT and Tasmania are so limited. My quest was further complicated by the fact that for Marathon Maniacs I needed to complete these marathons within 365 days from 29 November 2015 which was when I ran La Rochelle in France, as I’d set out to run 13 marathons in 13 different countries and/or states in 365 days.

I’d already missed the Cadbury marathon in Tasmania (it happens in January) and thus the first one I locked in was Ross!

The club in Australia that records those who have run the Australian sweep has a rule that the marathons must be of marathon distance. Anything longer does not count. They don’t stipulate a timeframe in which the events need to be completed, and I guess this is where it gets a bit complicated but bear with me – so for recognition of the Australian sweep I will use Macleay River marathon (run in 2013) as my marathon for NSW. I can’t use 6 foot track marathon (2014) because it was 45km; and I can’t use Ultra Trail Australia (2016) as it was 50km, despite them also both being in NSW. But I will use UTA50 for the Marathon Maniacs 13 marathons challenge………..

And thus the marathons I’ve done for each state are:

NSW – Macleay River marathon

Victoria – Wangaratta marathon

Australian Capital Territory – Canberra marathon

Western Australia – Perth marathon

Queensland – Gold Coast Airport Marathon

Northern Territory – Australian Outback Marathon

South Australia – Adelaide Marathon

Tasmania – Ross Marathon

Others I’ve done in Australia are:

NSW – Six Foot Track Marathon

NSW – UTA50