The Ultimate Guide to Marathons [Paperback]

Dennis Craythorn (Author), Rich Hanna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

The top 100 marathons in the United States and Canada are rated and described.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

So you've run the New York, Boston, Chicago, and San Francisco marathons. Now what? Or maybe you're a first-time marathoner with certain prerequisites, such as beautiful scenery, mild temperatures, uplifting crowds, and a fast course. The Ultimate Marathon Guide gets up-close and personal with 100 top destination and 80 smaller, local races that will help you choose your next--or first--marathon. Harriers will find details ranging from course records to entry fees to landmarks you'll encounter en route such as "the country's oldest lighthouse" (Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon). Course highlights allow readers to quickly determine the appropriateness of the event. For instance, a first-time marathoner looking for beautiful scenery may be drawn to the Leadville Mosquito Marathon based on its "Course Beauty" score of 9 out of 10. However, the novice should be wary: "This mosquito bites! Actually, mosquitoes are the least of your concerns at the Leadville Mosquito Marathon, named for a recurring obstacle on the course--Mosquito Pass. Quite simply the toughest marathon in North America, Mosquito runs above 11,000 feet for 80% of the race." Ouch! The guide concludes with bar graphs showing per mile elevation gains and losses, preparing the budding marathoner for those flat and fast stretches as well as the mid-course Mt. Everest climb. --Cate Bick

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Marathon Pub (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965518701
• ISBN-13: 978-0965518703
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,683,760 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This *was* a great book..., July 14, 2002

By 

Andy Orrock (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Marathons (Paperback)

...now it is seriously out-of-date. It reviews the 1998 and 1999 calendar years. Without an update by the authors it is, for all intents and purposes, useless.

I really do hope the authors get someone to publish an update, because it was (as the authors rightfully state) the ultimate guide back in 1997 - 1999. A shame.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good book for planning your first marathon., December 1, 1999

By 

CD Brookins - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Marathons (Paperback)

This book provides useful information to those new to the marathon game. While it is not a training guide, it does provide a comparative listing of the most popular marathons in the U.S. and Canada, including course descriptions, logistics, local hotels, and area attractions. Particularly useful is the 1 - 10+ rating system which includes Course Beauty, Difficulty, Race Organization, Crowd Support, and Appropriateness for First Timers. While this system is purely an objective one based on the opinions of the authors, I have found them to be "dead on". My only complaint is that while this book claims the be the "Ultimate Guide", it omits most of the smaller marathons, concentrating on the bigger and more popular races. Overall, this guide is well worth the price.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent guide, just a little out of date, September 8, 2005

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ultimate Guide to Marathons (Paperback)

"The Ultimate Guide to Marathons" is an excellent marathon resource for runners. This second edition was published in 1998 with information current up through 2000. A runner using this book as a guide needs to know that in five years a lot can change for a given marathon. A good example of this is the poorly managed Lakeshore Marathon in Chicago which recently had an issue of the course being measured incorrectly and being a mile too long. Information like this would be critical in any new edition of "The Ultimate Guide to Marathons". However, if you are able to accept this potential shortcoming of slightly out of date information and use this book as exactly what the title says, a "guide", then any runner can find a lot of value in this book.

This book ranks 110 marathons from across the United States and bases the rankings on such categories as fan support, race organization, course beauty, course difficulty, and how appropriate the race is for a first time marathon runner. The description of each of the 110 marathons includes sections on the history of the race, the race course itself, what sort of awards and accommodations there are, and other details about the race. This is excellent information. While every major marathon in the country is included in these rankings (as of 1998), there are also quite a few small marathons that make the list. As a Minnesotan I was pleased to see that all four Minnesota Marathons were included (Twin Cities, Grandma's, Med City, Walker North Country) and was surprised by Med City and Walker North Country because these are small marathons. W.N.C. in particular is a trail marathon and trail races are included and ranked right along with the big ones like Boston and New York City.

There is also a listing of approximately another 50 marathons that are typically smaller than the ones included in the ranking, and are "destination marathons", but as one that I recognized (Marathon to Marathon in Iowa) is not really a destination most people would want to go to, my guess is that these are just marathons that the authors were not able to fit into their ranking and that they ran out of time to get them included. I may be wrong about that, though. Either way, it is nice to see such a listing of marathons. I am aware of other regional marathons that were not included, but I do not know when these marathons were founded.

While the information provided in this book is several years out of date, the rankings and descriptions can be used as a guide to see if this is a marathon you are interested in running. If so, I would then recommend looking online at the race's website or perhaps finding another online marathon guide to see if there are any changes or significant drops in runner participation. But this book can be used as an excellent guide to get marathon ideas and if most major marathons are not changing their course or management you can expect that the rankings would stay fairly consistent overall. That makes me happy because Minnesota had the number 2 (Twin Cities, behind only Big Sur) and the number 13 (Grandma's) marathons according to these rankings.

-Joe Sherry