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McGlade trains on a trail
Brooke Point graduate and VCU student Patrick McGlade is training for a run that will take him |
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."
In January, he ran a 50-k (some 31 miles) in Bear Creek State Park, north of Cumberland in Southwest Virginia.
"It was 2 degrees below zero and the water in my Camelback froze up," he said.
Thirty people ran the Bear. McGlade won, in 5 hours, 11 minutes.
With the spring thaw, McGlade ran in the Shamrock Marathon in March in Virginia Beach and the Bel Monte Endurance Run (30 miles) west of Charlottesville in April. ("I was the sweeper, picking up the markers after the last runner. I had to finish last or no one would have known where to go.")
McGlade's longest run was last month, the 24-Hour Adventure Trail Run in Prince William Forest Park, which raised money for wounded veterans. The wrinkle there was that everyone ran for 24 hours on a closed 8-mile course and whoever did the most miles won. Breaks were taken every 8 miles (for McGlade, it was peanut-butter-and-jelly time). Twenty-five people competed. McGlade won (and tied the course record). He covered 108 miles. The second-place finisher stop-ped at 104 miles. Third place quit at 100.
Last month, he did the Bull Run 50-Mile Run in Manassas. He finished 18th out of 341 runners.
"I felt not only physically stronger," McGlade recalled after the May races. "I was also mentally ready to run farther."
A graduate of Brooke Point High School, McGlade is a wiry 5 feet 11 inches and weighs 155 pounds. When he started running the two blocks from the college to the valet-parking garage two summers ago, he weighed 190 pounds.
To prepare for his cross-country run in 2010, McGlade has signed up for five more events this year: a 100-mile run near Columbus, Ohio, on Aug. 1; a 12-hour version of the Adventure Trail Run on Sept. 12; the Great Eastern 100-k Endurance Run in George Washington National Forest on Sept. 26; the Grindstone Mountain 100-mile run on Oct. 3; and the Marine Corps Marathon on Oct. 25.
"Most people do this when they're in their 30s or 40s or 50s," McGlade said. "I'll keep it up until my body won't let me anymore."
Hugh Muir: 540/735-1975
Email: hmuir@freelancestar.com
