Gerry Chester passed 100,000 miles on May 27, 2020

 

Gerry Chester

Danielson CT

DOB: October, 1951

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My introduction to running came about after spending four

frustrating days trying out for the freshman football team in high school. On the fifth day, Sept. 24, 1965, even though I knew very little about the sport, I went to ask the cross country coach if I could join the team. He welcomed me and a few hours later I actually took part in my first cross country race. 

Despite running in high-cut Converse sneakers, developing blisters on every toe, and having my legs ache for days, I was hooked! Early in high school, I wasn’t the most mature individual and was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was a half-step away from some serious difficulties in my life, but it didn’t take long to realize that the self- discipline and confidence that running provided was exactly what I needed. 

Luckily for me, I found running before trouble found me. Yet in retrospect, if someone had told me beforehand that I would go on to run for nearly 55 years, coach the sport and teach high school for nearly 40 years, and self-publish a book about it all entitled Running Has Never Lied To Me, I would have called them crazy and thought they were hallucinating. 

In high school, as my love of the sport increased, it fueled an increasing curiosity into the training aspect of running - mostly to find a way for my own improvement as a runner. I began to ask my high school coaches about their training ideas as well as coaches and runners I met from other schools. I also read everything I could about the sport and more specifically about the different training methods from around the world. 

I’m quite sure I knew far more about famous distance coaches like Arthur Lydiard, Bob Timmons (Jim Ryun’s coach), and Bill Bowerman back then than I did about my upcoming history or geometry test. By the end of high school, I knew I wanted to become a distance running coach. The ultimate question however was, “How could I run, coach, and work all at the same time?” 

Near the end of my senior year, my coach at UConn Bob Kennedy provided the answer. “If you become a teacher, there’ll be a lot more opportunities to coach.” My response was, “Teaching? Are you crazy?” 

At that point in my life, standing in front of a room full of adolescents trying to implement daily lesson plans was NOT in the top 1000 things I ever wanted to do in my life. As all runners know, the sport has a unique way of forcing you to think very clearly and realistically, and often times, reality can be harsh. 

It was near the end of my college experience that, despite my love for running, I reluctantly had to admit that if my genetic gift for the sport had matched my desire and commitment to be the best runner I could be, I would have been a 4-minute miler. 

Unfortunately, it didn't and I wasn’t. But I never forgot that in running as in life, “success is relative.” And while the reasons I run have changed over the years, the thought of ever stopping has never crossed my mind. 

Since I first began and much like the words that Tom Hanks uttered in the movie Forrest Gump, “I just felt like running.” After college, I hesitantly followed my coach’s advice, and despite a bumpy initiation, teaching quickly became a job that I truly loved. 

Add to that the opportunity to coach the sports of cross country and track every day and together it formed an occupation that never felt like work. While I enjoyed and appreciated more relative success as a coach than I did as a competitive runner, I wouldn’t have traded a minute of any of the last 5+ decades. I have often wondered what my life would have been like had I not discovered running. 

Thankfully, it’s a question I’ll never have to answer. Since the early 1970s, I have recorded every workout I have run and have meticulously saved them. The trouble and the actual fun of it was sitting down and going through each year’s calendar, calculating the monthly and yearly mileages. 

While it took me nearly two months to complete, mostly because it was like rereading a diary of over 50 years, on May 27, 2020, I reached the 100K level exactly 19,969 days after my first and only run in high-cut sneakers. 

Note: The picture is of me standing in Monument Valley, Utah in May 2017 at the endpoint of Forrest Gump’s run. 

My PR’s: 

Mile: 4:24.8 

2-mile: 9:28.2 

3000m Steeplechase: 9:22.0 

5K: 15:45 

10 mile: 55:28 

½ Marathon: 1:19.8 

Marathon: 2:51.12 

Longest run: 34 miles. (Only because I got lost and refused to ask for directions. It’s a man thing.) 

Future goals: Keep running into my 70’s (and finally win an age-group medal)

Dennis Durbin reached 100,000 miles on July 21, 2020

Dennis Durbin

Martinez, CA

Birth: September 1951

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My running career began in high school when I joined the track team at St Vincent de Paul High School in Mt Vernon, Ohio. Prior to its closure in 1968, our team consisted of three members: my brother Ben (middle distance), Jon Snyder (sprints, long jump), and me (two-mile). Our coach, Joel Krocker, prepared us well and we beat some teams that had two or three members for each event. Those were the good old days that solidified my interest in running.

After high school, I walked on as a member of the Ashland College (now University) cross-country team in Ashland, Ohio, which was coached by Meade Burnett, who had been a standout sprinter at Ohio State. Prior to the start of indoor track, Coach Burnett suggested that team members keep a log of each workout. So I started logging my miles in November 1969 and now have 50-plus yearly logbooks. 

My running career at Ashland produced most of my PRs: mile (4:35), 2-mile (9:38), 3-mile (14:56), 6-mile (31:21), and 10-mile (55:11). Nothing spectacular, but I placed well enough in our meets, including cross country, to earn varsity level over four years. My best week was 120 miles, month 428 miles, and year 3722 miles.

After graduation from Ashland, I continued running and entered a number of road races from four miles to marathons. My first marathon was Boston in 1971 (2:55:35) and my best marathon was First Tennessee Bank in Chattanooga in 1977 (2:37:38 – 4 th place). My most difficult marathon was the 1977 Equinox Marathon in Fairbanks, Alaska, which covered some very rocky and steep ski trails. I ended up third with a time of 3:01:14.

Over the years, I concentrated more on getting miles, including 3-a-day workouts, instead of racing. I was able to string together a couple of 500 running day streaks, but realized I needed some rest time.

Most of my miles were logged in California, Ohio, and Alaska. While working on the Alaska Pipeline, I was the first one to run across the Yukon River Bridge. I also had a couple of black bear encounters that prompted me to have someone drive along while I ran.

I reached the 100,000-mile mark on July 21, 2020 at Lake Tahoe, which is one of my favorite places to run. For the days that I ran (12,850), my average has been 7.75 miles, which includes a number of two- a-days. Hopefully, I can continue this pace into my 70’s.

Stefan Fekner has run 256,695 kilometers (about 160,000 miles) on Feb. 1, 2020

Stefan Fekner

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

DOB: June 6, 1952

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As a runner and ultrarunner, I am a late bloomer. Growing up,

Toronto 100K, 1986

no one in my community ran more than a few miles or on a track. I was introduced to ‘jogging’ by my first planning director in 1980. I was 30 years old and immediately took to running increasing distances, with my lanky frame (long legs, short torso).

A serendipitous meeting, during a long Sunday run, with David LaPierre and Roy Sadgrove, two local ultrarunners resulted in my first ultra, two weeks later in the Vermilion 50 mile run (1984). The rest is history.

I found my niche in the 100 km as track was too much work and the marathon distance was not going to get me into the Olympics. I was a ‘lazy’ 10 km runner and preferred the 100 mile plus weekly training runs on the roads and shared use paths. I have tried some trail and cross country running but I prefer to just “get in a grove” and fly timelessly down the road. This is the essence of running, letting the body do the work while the mind wonders to other interests.

My marathon times were respectable, five under 2 hours, 30 minutes, but it was my 100 km times that earned me invitations and trips to nine IAU (International Association of Ultrarunners) World 100 km Championships; with 11 sub 7 hour performances; 3 Canadian National Championships; and a third place finish in the 1990 World Championships (only Canadian to date to place in these Championships). In 1988, I was Ultrarunning Magazine’s North American Male Ultrarunner of the Year. I have been fortunate in venturing into a seminal sport and being a Canadian ultrarunning pioneer.

Records are intended to be eclipsed. My inspiration comes “being in the arena” (President Theodore Roosevelt), with some of the finest ultrarunners (and human beings); experiencing moments of history (first Canadian 100 km team; first World 100 km Championships); and developing long friendships and warm memories of these races. I still run and compete in races for the ambiance and the fellowship. Running and (now) cycling athletes share a vital sense of ‘community’ throughout the world. My goal has always been to continue to enjoy the pursuit of physical movement and to learn new lessons as I age.

I will end with a quote from Dan Brannen (Running Times): “The longer we run, the more dimensions we add to an activity as maddingly complex as it is simple.” I just like to go out and run.

Thomas C. Bennett reached 160,000 kilometers on Nov. 30, 2019

Thomas C. Bennett

Auburn, Maine

Age 62

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I started running in May, 1981, after relocating to Maine from California, and that month notched a 49:14 10K. My first bout with serious training began in late 1983/early 1984, when my sister Kelly and I prepared for the original Maine Coast Marathon, which we ran in May, 1984. I have run around 40 marathons, with a PR of 2:43 at San Francisco in 1985. In recent years, I’ve returned to racing 5Ks and half marathons, and have done a number of trail and mountain races, including the Pineland 25K, Loon Mountain, and Cranmore Mountain Race, but continue to train almost exclusively on the roads.

My non-marathon road PRs are all from 1989: 8K 25:50, 10K 33:12, 10 mile 54:53,  half marathon 1:14:14. I reached 50,000 miles of running after 12.5 years, while the second 50,000 miles took twice as long. I got married in 1995, and have helped raise beautiful twin daughters while enjoying a fulfilling profession as a public librarian and historian. I value the benefits of snowshoeing, my canoe and Concept2 rower, hiking, shoveling the plentiful Maine snow, stacking, and hauling on average six cord of wood annually, trying new running events, and long, slow distance with good training partners. I serve on the board of the Maine Running Hall of Fame and as MRHOF archivist.

Jerry Kotsovos has run 127,000 miles (April 15, 2019)

Jerry Kotsovos
Camas, WA
D.O.B.:  May, 1946
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I was overweight during the latter portion of my childhood and during my college years.  However, wanting to lose weight, on July 19,1975 I started counting the number of miles I ran each day in order to motivate myself in my attempt to lose weight.  Since July 19, 1975, I have run more than 127,000 miles (a number of miles more than equal to half-way to the moon and more than equal to five times the circumference of the Earth.)  I try to run everyday and my longest streak of unmissed days occurred during my late 60's and early 70's when I ran on each of 1,943 consecutive days (a period of time lasting more than five years). It was a streak of runs which included runs in, in successive years, Canada, Panama, Egypt, Costa Rica, and Spain as well as runs in the United States. (When I am not running in my hometown, and, therefore, running an unmarked course, I calculate mileage run by adding several minutes to my typical minutes per mile so that I can be sure that I am not overcounting my mileage.)

I have been recording my number of miles run each day since 1975.  Indeed, my number of miles run since 1989 have been recorded on Runner's World annual calendars.  When I started running at 29-years-of-age, I would not have believed that  I would be running for more than forty years or running marathons.  However, several months after I started running, former Olympic marathoner Kenny Moore, like myself a graduate of the University of Oregon, won Coos Bay, Oregon's annual 18 miles race titled "Circle-the-Bay" and, after the race, told me that if I can run 18 miles then I can run a marathon.  I ran my first marathon several months after my conversation with Kenny Moore and have continued running marathons to the extent I have run marathons in six decades of my life.  (My best marathon time was the 2:56:12 I ran in the 1978 Boston Marathon.)