No rest for weary: Area runners aim for second marathon in one week

Herman Burmeister (far left), Tim Oser (third from right), and Tim Corbey (second from right) are running three marathons in the span of 13 days.

Tim Oser

Completing the Boston Marathon is the athletic achievement of a lifetime for many who run it.

For a handful of Toledo-area runners, Boston was just the first half of a loaded week.

Herman Burmeister (far left), Tim Oser (third from right), and Tim Corbey (second from right) are running three marathons in the span of 13 days.

Six days after braving miserable weather to complete Monday’s Boston Marathon, a select few runners will be back on the starting line for Sunday’s Glass City Marathon.

Tim Oser, who will do both in the same week for the third consecutive year, repeatedly has heard some variation of the same question.

Are you crazy?

“Somewhat, yes,” Oser said, laughing. “Normal, beginner runners don’t do this. I’ve been running pretty consistently for five or six years now, and I guess you get crazier as you run more and more. You do challenges you normally wouldn’t do.”

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Kori Kawczynski, one of the runners who will run two marathons in seven days, said she received a pleasant surprise this week. The Ottawa Hills Elementary School principal trained hard for Boston, and to her delight, she felt strong enough 48 hours afterward to give the Glass City Marathon a try as well.

“Going down stairs can be a little tricky,” Kawczynski said. “But my legs are running fine.”

The flatter home course also presents an opportunity for a better qualifying time for Boston in 2019, and because she recuperated quickly enough, Kawczynski decided during the middle of this week to race again.

“I wasn’t really planning to do both until [Wednesday], actually,” Kawczynski said. “I feel really good after Boston, so I figure I might as well take advantage of the training and get two marathons out of it.”

For Herman Burmeister, Oser, and fellow runner Tim Corbey, the Glass City Marathon is only the midpoint.

The trio of runners — all of whom ran in Boston — will run their home course, then run another 26.2-mile trek next week in the Big Sur Marathon in Carmel, Calif.

The Boston to Big Sur challenge is well-known in the running world, but sandwiching Toledo between the two presents a daunting task for the most die-hard runners: three marathons in 13 days.

“The twice in a week isn’t going to be the biggest issue,” Burmeister said. “It’s the next one that follows it that’s going to be a problem.”

The three marathons plus training runs will add up to about 100 miles in fewer than two weeks, and Burmeister said he approached Boston with the coming work in mind.

“I didn’t run Boston extremely hard, because I knew I had three marathons back-to-back-to-back,” Burmeister said. “The trick is not to race all three of them but be able to finish at a decent pace without getting hurt.”

To pull off multiple marathons in a short time span, Oser said using the time between races wisely is key. For this week, at least, he said he will opt for extra sleep and nothing too strenuous in terms of training.

The body needs additional calories to make up for the strain of running a marathon — Oser said, “You want to eat everything” after racing — but adding another 26.2 miles certainly is possible, if done correctly.

“I do have the experience of doing them back-to-back, and what I’ve learned is that it goes back to resting this week,” Oser said. “I just take it easy. I’ve consistently run a lot of miles, so this is nothing new to my legs.”

As daunting as it is, Burmeister promised the second marathon is enjoyable too — even if comes with the inevitable questions about one’s mental well-being.

“That’s what everybody asks,” Burmeister said. “No, [I’m] actually not crazy. It’s my home course and it’s a lot of fun.

“I promise.”

Contact Nicholas Piotrowicz at npiotrowicz@theblade.com, 419-724-6110 or on Twitter @NickPiotrowicz