PaceSetters Weblog

It’s been several weeks now since I’ve completed my quest to do a marathon in every state & Washington DC. I’d like to thank the many well-wishers… it was quite the journey.

I never considered myself an athlete growing up. In fact, my start at running was a rather backdoor approach. How did it all begin? I wanted to take my youngest child over to UW-Fox Valley to see the Fox Cities marathon finish. I thought maybe she would see all the runners and take some interest in getting more physically fit. I laugh now at that picture. I was the one who was overweight, smoking cigars and “living the good life”. I had not probably run a step since college intramurals a long time ago. I was so overweight that later that year I stopped to see another daughter perform at her swim meet and my knee gave way as I was tried to go up the bleacher steps. I crushed the meniscus and my knee locked in place. After surgery, the doctor told me to walk a lot to rehab the knee since he doubted I would ever run a marathon. I know… how prophetic. That all happened in the fall through the winter of 2001. I thought back to the day I brought my daughter to watch the runners finish the marathon. I said to myself, “I want to do a marathon before I die.” But, I didn’t want to give up those tasty cigars.

I started to walk with my wife. I walk/jogged. I jogged. I went to a PaceSetters meeting. I joined. I decided to train to run the 2002 Fox Cities marathon. I lost nearly 80 pounds in the process. My friends thought that I perhaps had contracted some major illness since I lost all the weight. I was still smoking cigars though. September 29, 2002 came and I was so psyched. I set a goal “to finish” and as long as was setting goals… I thought I should be able to finish within 4 hours since I trained so hard and lost all the weight. Finished at 4:03 and was so disappointed, sore (so bad that once I sat down I couldn’t get up without assistance) and my right foot had swollen up. Not a pretty picture. And talk about disappointment. My friends and family threw a party for me… and I was forced to sit on the couch with my foot wrapped in ice. I never wanted to do that again.

It probably took weeks for the soreness to wear off. A colleague of my wife, a marathoner, asked me if I would do Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth in June. Frustrated that I missed my time goal at Fox Cities, I thought I’d give it another shot. I continued to go to PaceSetter meetings and got a ton of advice from so many experienced runners. I was doing everything wrong… had no plan… and yet I found that even a non-runner, a non-athlete could actually enjoy the challenge. I ended up doing 3 marathons in 2003 including Green Bay, Grandma’s and Lakefront where I set a PR that lasted until 2008… and I still smoked those great cigars.

Like most runners I was aware of Boston qualifying. At Lakefront, I missed qualifying by less than 4 minutes… so I decided that perhaps I should give up smoking and I finally quit. In 2004 I heard about a marathon in Cincinnati called the “Flying Pig” from another PaceSetter who had done it the year before. They had a great 3-D medal with a flying pig going through the medal… so I signed up. It was there that I saw some runners wearing “50 State Marathon Club” t-shirts. I leaned over from my breakfast table and asked, “What’s that all about?” The seed was planted.

It took me until the end of 2005 to qualify to join the 50 States Marathon Club when I finished a marathon in 10 different states. So, in 2006 I joined both the 50 States Marathon Club and the 50 & DC Marathon Group USA. I joined the second group because I wanted to do the Marine Corp Marathon in 2006 that I heard about when taking a training course from Jeff Galloway. In 2006, I added 8 more states and Washington DC to my completion list. I became obsessed with the quest to complete a marathon in every state & DC by adding 11 more states in 2007 and 12 more in 2008. That left only 9 states remaining. The scheduling of these 9 remaining states became a nightmare. Because some of these states had a limited number of marathons, I had to change my goal of finishing this quest in Hawaii to finishing in Rhode Island. The next problem is that Maryland and Connecticut only had marathons available on the same date. So, with the help of the 50 State Marathon Club, I was able to arrange my first marathon in 2009 as a 31 mile (50K) ultra-marathon in Connecticut. A week later I was back on the East coast to do New Jersey. After a 3 week break, I went back to Vermont. 3 down, 6 to go. The end of August brought me out West to beautiful Park City Utah just north of a sweltering 110 degree Salt Lake City. 2 week later I flew into Denver, rented a car and drove up to Pocatello Idaho where we enjoyed baked potatoes at the finish line. I hoped back in my car and headed south to Colorado Springs CO and completed the American Discovery Trail Marathon 2 days after Pocatello. Two weeks later I was on my dream vacation in sunny (and humid) Maui Hawaii. Hawaii is a great place to vacation… not so nice of a place to do a marathon. 7 down, 2 to go. I traveled back to the East coast in mid October to finish the Baltimore Marathon… followed a week later in Newport Rhode Island. On October 18, 2009, I completed a marathon in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and a total of 57 marathons and 1 ultra-marathon. With most marathons being slightly long, I estimated a total of 1,550 course miles.

Friend & fellow PaceSetter Dean Peterson told me that there are only 10 Wisconsinites who have accomplished this goal and 2 of them live in Appleton… myself and Dean. I know a couple of friends that are working on their 50 states… though perhaps not as aggressively as I did. I completed 45 marathons over the past 4 years (2006-09) that included 40 new states & Washington DC and qualifying for Boston 4 times.

I was totally overwhelmed by the weather in Rhode Island that the “celebration” of the completion never happened. All I wanted was a hot shower, hot food and to head back to Wisconsin in a warm, dry car. I, of course, hung the medal from my rear view mirror… a tradition I started with all the marathons I have driven. I even got stopped by a Grand Chute police officer last year for hanging my marathon medals from that mirror. “It’s the law.” Sure…

My family helped me through the frustration of not having a celebration in Rhode Island for finishing this accomplishment by giving me a Vermont teddy bear complete with 50 State & DC Marathon Finisher t-shirt and running shoes (the Vermont Marathon is at the Home of the Vermont Teddy Bear); some 50 state finisher shirts & sweatshirt; and they had all my medals for the quest framed. Of course all of my kids still hold it against me for not taking them to Hawaii with me.

Here are a few other thoughts/stats/best/worst: I flew commercially to only 8 states (Alaska & Hawaii, of course; as well as Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado & Florida). I also flew in a private plane with my friends Doug & Laurie Osterberg to Wyoming, Iowa & Tennessee. The rest I drove to accumulating over 150,000 miles on my Saab & Jeep in the process. I have stayed in over 100 different hotel/motels, ate at lots of local pizza joints & restaurants and had a couple/few brews along the way.

The largest finishing medal was Little Rock Arkansas; the smallest & worst was in Iowa; and Michigan was the only state I completed that did not have any finishing medal at all. I have accumulated lots of shirts. The shirts ranged from simple cotton t’s to the more sophisticated moisture wicking shirts… which have now become the norm at most events. The best pre-race food & organization goes to Little Rock and the best post-race food was Idaho which had… wait for it… baked “potatoes”, hot sandwiches & chocolate milk. Best post race entertainment goes hands down to Nashville TN. Worst had to be Atlanta GA since most runners were half marathoners, it was like a ghost town at the finish I had to get a snack & drink at the medical tent since everything else was gone. Best crowd support… Chicago. Worst? There are too many to remember. Hottest temperature wise was a tie between the arid desert in Phoenix to the heat & humidity in Maui & Iowa. There were a lot more hot/humid marathons… far more than cold. Windiest goes to Casper WY. Gusts were so strong that they blew me literally off the course and I’m not a small guy. I remember The Flying Pig in Cincinnati OH, because from the time I left the hotel until my return, I was in a downpour. Boston 2007 had a horrible ‘noreaster’ that combined the wind in the face for the entire marathon and torrential rain for the first 5 miles. At least the rain stopped during most of that one. Michigan was on an island in which the pouring rain made the trail run virtually impassible and lightening struck the ground within a few feet of the course. The worst weather combination of cold, wind & rain was my last in Newport RI. The hardest running surface was a tie between Tulsa Oklahoma and Washington DC because the course was mainly on concrete. Quite a few courses were ‘forgettable’.

I remember running in circles in Portland Oregon, New Jersey and Connecticut since the courses were simple repeating loops.

I vacationed in Alaska & Hawaii spending a week at both. Both states are ‘must visits’ and I hope to return to both again. They are true jewels. I was also struck by the beauty and majesty of the mountains on both coasts.

Driving to most of the venues allowed me plenty of time to listen to audio books which I also enjoy listening to on my long runs. My best purchase was getting a subscription at audible.com to load books to my ipod. The second best purchase was getting a subscription to E-Z Pass to get through the hundreds of tollways along the routes. That saved a lot of time. My trips to New Hampshire & Maine was perfectly timed with the fall foliage.

Driving has its drawbacks as well. I tried to drive through several blizzards. The worst was on my way to South Carolina where the snow was so bad I had to stop for the night because I could no longer see and the roads had to be plowed. Even on my trip to Rhode Island, I encountered a blizzard traveling through Pennsylvania. I lost my air conditioning on a hot summer trip out west. And, I lost an exhaust system out in Montana. I’ve gotten lost more times than I can count on these trips especially trying to listen to GPS systems that want to take you anywhere & everywhere except where you need to go. I’ve also gotten lost trying to drive courses. Sometimes I actually got the course right.

There were no grizzly bears at the Grizzly Marathon. No flying pigs at the Flying Pig Marathon. A lot people do not know the difference between a flat course and a hilly course… and the definition seems to change from state to state. I ran a few miles with Sam Thompson who ran 51 marathons in 50 days in Iowa… and you think I’m crazy. I also had a chance meeting with Joan Benoit Samuelson during the Maine Marathon. It was her home turf and she was just out for a Sunday morning run.

I ran with a lot of other 50 state runners along the way who were also trying to accomplish the same feat. I befriended several and asked for their advice along the way.

I hate to think of how much this has cost me dollarwise. I’d rather remember how this quest has made me a better person and a better runner. I’ve had a lot of support along the way from my family, friends, other 50 staters and the PaceSetters where this all started. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in training. I have modified my running style watching so many other runners and that has keep me virtually injury free over the past 5 years.

Do I have any advice for anyone wanting to complete a marathon in every state and DC? Be ready to get out of your comfort zone! Every event is different. Different courses, different weather conditions, different sizes, different adventures. Every event is like a 51 different vacations. Enjoy yourself. I did for the most part.

What’s next? Well I plan on doing marathons in places that appeal to me or that I’ve heard about from others. I already have the Disney “goofy challenge” where you run a half marathon on Saturday and the full on Sunday scheduled for January. In February, I will run my 60th marathon on my 60th birthday on the coast south of Houston TX followed by the 61st the following day in Austin on Valentine’s Day. Don’t you just love it? I have the 2010 Boston Marathon in April. I also hope to finish more of Wisconsin’s marathons until I do all of them. Perhaps I will run into you at one of the dozen or more events I plan on for 2010.