|
|
|
| Tue, Nov. 24 - - Mobile - RSS | |
|
|
Running coast to coast
Stafford long-distance runner plans the ultimate cross-country runDate published: 6/23/2009 By HUGH MUIR Patrick McGlade, a 21-year-old senior at Virginia Commonwealth University, decided one day last December that he would run home for the holidays. His college residence is on Clay Street in Richmond. His parents' home is in Aquia Harbour. His path followed U.S. 1 for 70 miles. "When I got to Massaponax, with 20 miles still to go, I stopped," he said later. "I couldn't get through the second wall." The second wall for a distance runner is like a second wind for a Sunday jogger, except that a "wall" means mental as well as physical fatigue. "My dad was driving legs of the run ahead of me. He would drive five miles, stop until I caught up, and then drive another leg, and so on," McGlade said. He called his father, Desmond, a retired Marine, on his cell phone and said: "Dad, I think I bit off more than I can chew. I'm ready to stop." He rode the rest of the way home. But now he plans to make the ultimate cross-country run early next year, by running from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, in about four months. McGlade has been running for two years. "I had a summer job valet parking for the Medical College of Virginia," he said. "The faster you are, the more tips you get. I ran." After six months, encouraged by his mother, Susie, he began to run for the fun of it. He did his first organized run in the May 2008 Marine Corps Historic Half race in Fredericksburg. His time was 1 hour, 43 minutes. McGlade's training program has been to fill his Camelback pack with peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and run 30 to 35 miles a week. "There are a lot of calories in peanut butter and jelly," he said, "and besides, I like it." He ran the Rock 'n' Roll half-marathon at Virginia Beach in August in an hour and 38 minutes. In October he ran the full Marine Corps Marathon in Washington in 3 hours, 41 minutes. "It was the hardest thing I had ever done," he said. But McGlade was hooked. "I like the solitude of the long runs," he said. "I like pushing my body past what I once thought was its limit."
Read more stories about Stafford Date published: 6/23/2009
|
 |
|||
|
|||
