Even though I’m currently focused on training for the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon at Disneyland November 16th, each of the races that are on the calendar to finish the 2014 year all complete challenges.

It started with the Dumbo Double Dare. I ran the Disneyland 10K and Disneyland Half Marathon on back to back days to complete the Dumbo Double Dare Challenge.

Not only did I complete the Dumbo Double Dare Challenge, but I earned my first Coast to Coast medal. In order to qualify for this medal, you have to finish a half marathon distance or greater at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland in the same calendar year. I completed the Walt Disney World Marathon in January and the Disneyland Half Marathon in August to earn this fabulous medal.

Before I take on the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon, I’ll be running in the Long Beach Half Marathon on October 12th. It’s the 30th Anniversary of this race. We’ll be getting sea shell medals apparently. However, this is not the only medal I will be receiving when I finish…

By finishing the Long Beach Half Marathon, I will be completing the Beach Cities Challenge….

In doing so, I will be taking home this medal! It’s a pretty large medal. In order to qualify for this medal and complete the challenge, you must finish the Surf City USA Marathon/Half Marathon, the OC Marathon/Half Marathon and the Long Beach Marathon/Half Marathon consecutively. Unlike the runDisney Coast to Coast medal, you don’t have to complete these races in the same calendar year. The requirement is to finish all three races in a row. You can start with any of the three and finish the rest in order. I finished the Surf City USA Half Marathon in February and the OC Half Marathon in May. All that’s left is the Long Beach Half Marathon in October. Then, the extra medal is mine!

To close out the year, I’ll be running in the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon at Disneyland on November 16th.

After I finish the Avengers Half, I will be able to say this…I just qualified for the Half Fanatics. Chances are that, if you’ve run a half marathon, you’ve seen people wearing their Half Fanatics shirts. Here are the qualifications for the Half Fanatics. I will qualify on the Neptune level. It’s the base level for qualification. With running the Disneyland Half Marathon, the Long Beach Half Marathon, and the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon, I will have finished 3 half marathons in less than 90 days. Before the Avengers Super Heroes Half Marathon and Star Wars Half Marathons were announced, I had planned on running other races to qualify for the Half Fanatics. At one point, I thought that by cancelling my plans on running the Rock n Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon was going to drop me from qualifying. Then, I did the math and realized that Avengers is within 90 days of the Disneyland Half Marathon. So, it should work.

As you can see, each of the races that finish out my year are about more than the individual races themselves. Do any of you plan your races to meet certain challenges? If so, which challenges have you met this year? Or are going to meet by year’s end?