The Marathon Man Is Coming

by John Boel

Dean Karnazes is coming to Louisville to run a marathon later this month. He'll be tired and aching before he even starts. It's not because he hasn't been training. You see, on October 26th, when Karnazes tackles the Otter Creek Marathon course, he will have just logged 1,048 miles of running in the previous 39 days. That's an average of 26.2 miles per day. And that's because Karnazes is attempting to pull off one of the craziest, most compelling, athletic feats ever attempted on two feet. He's trying to run 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days in 50 different states. The first question that came to my mind, is why? “To me,” he says, “This is a wakeup call to the country. I'm trying to take the message that being fit can be not only a good thing, but a fun thing. This tour atmosphere we've created, where other people can run with me, I want people to come and join in the group and see we're having a great time. We're celebrating fitness. We, as a nation, have let our health slip and we'd all be a lot happier if we could trim five pounds from our midsection."

Specifically, Karnazes is doing this to raise money and encourage young people to get outdoors and become more physically active. I just read a story in our newscast today involving research that shoots down the long held belief that kids just naturally outgrow early chubbiness. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that children who were overweight at two, or during their preschool years, faced a five times higher risk of being overweight at the age of 12. It's all shocking and inexcusable to Karnazes.“One-third of our youth in this country are either overweight or obese. That's 25 million kids. That's so saddening to me.” So how in the world does he intend to complete 50 marathons in 50 days in 50 states.“I've been running a lot of organized marathons this year and many ultra-marathons,” he says. “50 and 100 mile long races.” Still, I wondered what his longest run or most grueling workout has been in preparation for this. After all, 1,310 miles in 50 days is obscene.“I ran 350 miles in 81 hours. That's my most demanding prep for this.” Karnazes believes the key to pulling this off is not in total mileage.

When you wake up the morning after a half or full marathon and you can't move, it's a quadriceps issue. So Dean has been trying something a little different to prepare his quads for 49 straight days of morning-after blues, followed by 26 more miles. “Cross training, doing a lot of mountain biking and wind surfing. Trying to build up my quads to recover quicker and handle the pounding. This thing is not about speed. I'm not doing any speed work. It's about being able to handle, day after day, a pretty brutal routine. I think mountain biking and wind surfing will help a lot the next morning when you have to get up the next day and run another marathon. I find that having my quads built up is pretty useful."

Now that I think about it, just travelling from state to state every day for 50 straight days would be tiring to me. Presidential candidates don't work this hard. His route takes him from Missouri south and then slowly west, before sweeping the south, then northeast and northern states, before pushing south again and hitting Kentucky in the 40th stop of his 50 state tour. It gives new meaning to the term “carbo-loading.” In fact, he's learned to ingest more carbs, even though he's on a crusade with a message of fitness and weight loss.

“I'm working with Lance Armstrong's coach and trainer. I've never worked with a coach and trainer before. I was not eating nearly as many carbohydrates as Lance was. I was eating a lot more protein. Consequently I got fairly bulky. So they've worked with me to change my diet to a higher percentage of carbs and less protein and less fat.”

Interestingly, his biggest fear has nothing to do with bonking or failing to complete his mission. His biggest concern is having to break out of the very personal shell of a writer and runner, and be a social butterfly on this tour.

“I'm by nature a very introverted person. I get nervous around groups of people. But for 50 days I'm going to be around groups of people. It will be interesting to talk to people day after day for 26 miles.”

Somehow, Dean, I'd be more worried about the way I'd feel on, say, day 42, waking up in the Florida heat to run a marathon after logging 11-hundred miles, and knowing I have to fly all the way up to Virginia afterward for the next day's marathon. But that's just me. You can follow Dean's journey at www.enduranceis.com. And feel free to join in when he gets to Kentucky on Oct. 26.

Suddenly, just running one lousy marathon doesn't seem so bad. I've done the 140-mile-long Ironman Triathlon. I've run two marathons a couple of weeks apart, that gave me a case of plantar fascitis still plaguing me today. And I can't get out of my mind the terrible trouble I have getting out of bed and just walking on the morning after every marathon I run. So I'm fascinated at how he's going to get through the pain of this campaign.

John Boel is a 41-time Emmy winning news anchor at WLKY-TV. He's married, with two daughters, and is an avid runner and triathlete.