we're only running 1 marathon in October?

My dad called to tell me that the Des Moines Register had an article this week featuring a man who is going to run 11 marathons in 11 days across Iowa. If I can find the link, I'll add it. Eleven marathons in eleven days!?!?!?! Nuttie B'guttie! I have noticed that as our longer runs get longer, I am starting to think of the shorter runs as, well, shorter...like last Saturday, I ran 9.5 miles, so today at our group run, I found myself thinking, "I only have to run 7 miles today." I can clearly remember when 7 seemed unthinkable. But to get to the point where 26 miles is a "short run"? I don't think so! On this note of amazing, here's another marathon trivia fact:

7 Days, 7 Continents, 7 Marathons. Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Dr. Michael Stroud went seven for seven during a grueling week of marathon running and transcontinental travel. The pair ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents from October 26 - November 2, 2003. Fiennes and Stroud's first marathon was in southern Chile, followed by ones in the Falkland Islands and Sydney, Australia. The two men then ran 26-mile races in Singapore, London and Cairo, before finishing their amazing seven-day feat by completing the New York City Marathon. Besides battling the exhaustion that any marathon runner faces, Fiennes and Stround also had to battle jet lag and dramatic changes in temperature and humidity during each race. The feat was even more impressive for Fiennes, who suffered a heart attack just four months earlier.