How I became ‘that guy’ at the Ogden Marathon

Posted on by Tim Hurst

Tim and Adam at mile 23 of Ogden Marathon

Back in December of 2011 my step son Riley Stanger drove with me to Missouri for a marathon. He was a great help. He  followed me off and on through the whole race giving me assistance and info to keep me going. At one point he noticed a runner who had 2 bloody trails on the front of his shirt. He was shocked and pointed it out to me. I casually looked over and then said something like, “Yea I know, there’s always one of ‘those guys’ in every marathon I run”. Well maybe I shouldn’t have been so cavalier in my attitude because I am now, ‘that guy’.

That guy with Bloody Nipples….me

I bought a really nice Nike running shirt a few months back. The white running shirt hung in my closet unworn and recently when I saw it there I thought it would be the perfect shirt for this marathon.  After about 20 miles my chest was really killing me and when I looked down, I saw to my horror that I had two long bloody trails starting at my nipples and dripping down about 3 inches on either side! I was so embarrassed I wanted to bury my head in a bucket of sand. I looked like some ‘newbie’ who was running marathon numero uno not a guy with 16 races to his credit. Well, live and learn I guess. Next time I’ll use band-aids and tons of Vaseline.

I ran  the  Ogden, Utah Marathon  Saturday, May 19 with my Son-in-Law Adam Smith.  If you follow my blog you may  remember  that Adam  came with me to the Montana Marathon and accidentally ended up running the entire 2nd half of the marathon completely untrained in a pair of Vans Tennis shoes.  He decided  that since he as able to do that he wanted to run a marathon for real.  I had already run 3 Utah marathons I certainly didn’t need a 4th one but when Adam invited to run with him to run his very first marathon I couldn’t very well say no.

After about 5 miles we ran up next to another runner who, like Adam, was sporting a pretty legitimate beard.

The beard Adam grew as he trained for the marathon

We all started talking and having a great time running when all of a sudden he just shrieked and grabbing at his leg fell over. He nearly took me down with him when he fell but I managed to get out of the way. Adam ran straight to several Police/EMT guys who luckily just happened to be standing not too far away on the side of the country road we were on. They immediately rushed over and began to help him. It kinda freaked me out a little. I’ve seen plenty of people pass out from heat or exhaustion but never from what appeared to be a pulled muscle before. One second he was right as rain the next second on the ground crying in pain.

Adam did a great job and kept pace the whole way with only a couple of slow downs. Our over all time was 5 hours, 6 minutes which is pretty decent. A couple of nice surprises of day was my friend Chuck Uibel who I haven’t seen in a couple of years turned out to be one of the photographers and at a certain point a fellow running caught up to us and asked me if I was the guy on that ‘Mormon Video’ he watched. Pretty cool stuff. I love being able to run marathons and being with my family. All and all it was a pretty good day

Boston Marathon Part 2 – There’s more to life than running!

Posted on by Tim Hurst

 The Boston Marathon was incredible but there was so much more  to going to the Boston Marathon than just running.

The best DOG ever…Boston Quincy Market

The McDonald Home in Walden

The McDonald Home in Walden

We were met at the airport by Dan McDonald. He and his Wife, Margie, hosted us while we were in Boston. They let us stay in their historic 140 year old home with them and their three Daughters and were our personal tour guides through the city. They are such wonderful people and a great family.

Margie and Dan both work for the Boston Museum of Science. The museum puts on a promotion called Race to the Alter Wedding Marathon and the winners get a free wedding and reception completely paid for. Margie arranged it so that Lynette and I would be one of the winning couples. 

Renewing our wedding vows by Charles River

Renewing our wedding vow by the Charles River

 We were interviewed by several of the newspapers then afterwards were guided outside and to a Minister who performed our Wedding next the beautiful Charles River. It was very romantic. Technically this was our third wedding. Our first one was performed by our Bishop, number two was 10 years later at the Oquirrh Mountain Temple and now number three in Boston.

Amazing food for a reception from Wolfgang Puck CateringAfter the ceremony they gave us a really nice reception complete with food, cake and even a DJ. It was a nicer wedding than the wedding we gave ourselves.

Afterwards we changed back into our grubbies and went on a ‘Duck’ tour through the city. A Duck boat is an amphibious car/boat thing that the military used in the war and the museum still uses for tour rides. We road through the streets with our tour guide, Major Tom Foolery, as he showed us the sites in the great city of  Boston, Massachusetts. We even left the roads and he drove us right into the river and under the bridges. He brought Lynette up to the driver’s seat and let her steer for a while.

Lynette Driving the Duck Boat

Lynette Driving the Duck Boat

Old Ironsides… the oldest commisioned still operating
Warship

What would a trip to Boston be without visiting old ‘Ironside’ or the U.S.S. Constitution. This is the oldest still commissioned war ship in the U.S. Navy.

Close up of my face Riding the Subway in Boston

I have eaten at Subway Restaurants but I had never ridden the subway before. It was fun but in a scary way. I never really knew quite where I was. Thank goodness Dan McDonald rode with us and basically held my hand and showed me where to go or I might still be there to this very day trying to figure out what the heck I needed to do.

Fenway Park 100 years old this year

We went to Fenway Ball Park! They were celebrating their 100th year anniversary! They never updated their scoreboard with electronics. It’s still done the old-fashioned way with people hanging numbers on hooks.

The fairbanks House the oldest frame structure still standing in the US. Lynette’s family originally build this home in the 1600s.

Other sites we visited were a reconstructed steel mill from the 1600′s and the Fairbanks home. The Fairbanks home was originally built in 1630 and is the oldest still standing frame home in the United States. Lynette is actually related to these people.

The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!

We saw Bunker Hill and the actual church that Paul Revere hung his lanterns in to warn the people that, ‘the regulars are coming’. It was explained to us that since everyone back in those days were British he never really said, ‘the British are coming’, but in fact people referred to the British as the ’Regulars’.

While I was running a fellow runner came up behind me and said he saw my ‘I’m a Mormon’ video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbgk14yByTU.  It really made me feel great. I had another runner tell me he ran the Las Vegas Red Rock Marathon the month before and recognized me as a runner in that one too. I almost asked him how the heck he knew it was me and then I remember I was the only guy there with a blue and orange dragon tattooed prosthetic leg. 

The LDS Missionary recongized me from the “I’m a Mormon ” commecial and asked to have a picture taken with me… I’m famous lol

Thank you so much McDonald family for letting us stay with you, thank you so much City of Boston for a truly once in a life time marathon experience. Thanks to my wonderful family and friends for all their love and encouragement. Let me end by thanking one last person, my Father in Heaven for the opportunity to to what I do and having the time of my life doing it.

Boston Marathon Blade Runners! (Boston Part 1)

Posted on by Tim Hurst

Got home late last night from the Boston Marathon. When we left Salt Lake City it was snowing. Apparently Boston wasn’t aware it was early spring and decided to heat itself up into the high 80′s for the oldest active marathon in the world.

At the Boston Marathon

The energy of the city is something I can’t describe so if you want to know what it’s like then plan on going there yourself. I have never seen crowds of spectators so large it was phenomenal. Thousands of Bostonian’s lined the entire 26.2 mile course with plastic horns, cow bells and party music.

Cheering for Tim

It was suggested to me by my wonderful host family, the McDonald’s, to write my name on my arms with a sharpie so people could cheer me on. This was both a good and bad idea.

The McDonald family showed us what Boston is all about

I heard my name yelled by so many people it made it impossible to hear when my wife tried to call to me. This was the first marathon I have run where I got to compete with other amputee’s! We even had our own category, ‘Mobility Impaired’. I met so many cool runners among them was SBR or Singapore Blade Runner! I was not aware that my prosthetic leg is called a ‘Blade’. Yea, how cool is that? I run on a blade. In SBR’s country he is considered a national hero. He is the first amputee to compete in the Boston Marathon. Love how his video makes him into a super hero.

This was the biggest marathon I have ever run in. I met regular two legged runners as well. These are among the fastest runners in the world, people from Germany, Japan, Canada, South Americans, and of course Kenyans.First Kenyan runs by at mile 24

Most of the time I met them just by chance. As we would come up next to each other I would try to engage them in conversation but they wouldn’t be able to understand me. When I was given a silver ‘space blanket’ to keep warm with the wind began to blow it over my head. I looked behind me and said to the two Asian fellas that I felt a bit like Batman on a windy day. They both began to laugh and talking very fast in Japanese, “Something, something, something, BATMAN!, something, something”. Looks like even Japanese people know who Batman is.

I finished slower than I wanted but with the very respectable time of 5:36 and 5th in my category. SBR gave me the inspiration to rename myself to ‘Daybreak Blade Runner’! Even if I can’t go fast at least I can have a cool name.

Las Vegas Red Rock Marathon, no gamble

Posted on by Tim Hurst

"The Leg" in Nevada

I set a goal last year of running a marathon a month. I ran 11 so that’s not too bad but now that the states are getting further away from home it’s costing a lot more to get to all these different locations. This year, unless I win the lottery, I’m shooting for 6 marathons. I think I can afford that. My first race of the year was in Las Vegas, Nevada in March. Las Vegas is only a 6 hour drive so the trip wouldn’t be costing us an arm and a leg and since I’ve only got one of those left I really have to watch it!

Road to Vegas

We drove down and were able to stay with some good friends of the family, Julie and Jason Deforest. So far everything was going great. Once we arrived in Vegas and made our way over to our friends place we went to dinner at the ‘M’Casino. They had the largest buffet I’ve ever seen in my life. Nothing says Las Vegas like a Buffet! Everything was so yummy. I ate and ate and ate. If you are out there reading this and are wondering why people run marathons I would think that getting to eat and stuff yourself silly is a very good reason by itself. After dinner we went to bed good and early so I could get enough sleep before the big race.

The next morning my wife, Lynette, dropped me off at starting line buses in front of the Red Rock Casino. The second I sat in my seat I realized I had left my bib number and shoe timing chip in the car. It was 5:00am and the race was scheduled to start at 6:00. I looked around but Lynette had already left and she did not have her cell phone with her. She was hoping to hurry back to Julie’s place and get a few more hours sleep so she wasted no time in the parking lot. I was freaking out. This was a first for me. I’m always so careful to check and then double check everything. I figured, ‘Well that’s it, race is over’. Another runner on the bus stood up and told me not to worry, he said that they were still signing up runners at the starting line and once the bus got us there they would issue me another bib and timing chip. He was right, thank goodness. I got my new bib number and timing chip and still had plenty of time to eat some snacks and drink a bottle of water.

This was perhaps my hardest true marathon. The course was a 9 mile incline into some of the most beautiful red rock I’ve ever seen followed by a rapid 4 mile decline. It was brutal. Most everyone I saw walked a good deal but I refused to. I had trained extra hard for this race because I had read the reviews very closely and I knew there would be killer uphills and knee smashing downhills. As soon as I finished the first 13 miles the 1/2 marathoners were waiting at their start and joined the full marathoners to run back the same way we had just come. So the 4 mile steep downhill just turned into an almost impossible 4 mile uphill followed by a 9 mile downhill. I did not stop and finished with a very respectable time of 5 hours 50 minutes. We were told to add an hour to our normal time because of the extreme difficulty of the course so I was very pleased. While this was my most difficult marathon so far it was also the most beautiful and probably the best organized and by far my most favorite. There were more than enough water stations and porta-pottys. The course was very well marked and nothing beats starting in pitch blackness at 6:00am and watching the sun come up during the race.< <Every time I complete another marathon I’m just amazed I was able to do it. I thank my Heavenly Father for the opportunity and physical ability to be lucky enough to compete in marathons. I have been truly blessed.

Boston Bound, a new year, a new attitude!

Posted on by Tim Hurst

Training for the Boston Marathon has begun. I am planning for my best race so far.

Oscar Pistorius


This year’s Christmas present from my Wife was an iphone with specific instructions from her to add the Nike running app on it. This app may have changed the way I run forever. Almost immediately I got faster and I have come to realize that the advice I’ve received in the past from some very prominent experts and fellow runners is true. I need to stop thinking like a guy with a handicap and think like a person without limitations instead. Everyone of us has some kind of handicap and yet all of us have unlimited potential and the ability to overcome them.

barefoot Todd

Last year after running the Rock n’ Roll Marathon in Phoenix I met a guy who introduced himself to me as Barefoot Todd .He had just completed his 100th barefoot marathon. He congratulated me on the race and then implied I could run faster and even try running barefoot. I never even considered running barefoot (I think not,one handicap is enough) and I was almost offended when he suggested that I should run faster. After all I’m handicapped. I’m just lucky to be out here in the first place. Barefoot Todd didn’t see it that way. To him I was on equal footing (no pun intended) with everyone else. He even told me that I should train the same as a two footed runner.

After running my first marathon a problem began to develop in my stump. It would swell up something terrible after passing the 1/2 way mark. My solution was to take Tylenol almost non-stop until the end of the race. It didn’t work very well. I decided to talk to the premier prosthetic Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius and get his insight on this problem. I called and left a voice message and waited almost 2 months for him to call me back. His frankness shocked me. He told me to stop being a baby and just deal with it. At the time this didn’t seem to be the answer I was looking for but later it would be.

I had convinced myself that I would never be any faster than a 5 1/2 hour marathon however after just a few days training with my new app pushing me along I have already cut 1/2 hour off my time on my 9 mile morning run. I have had to change my stride to be more like a two legged runners stride. While in the middle of training I had an epiphany, I had to stop thinking of myself as limited and start thinking of myself as limitless. Bring on Boston!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

Beware hitchhiking skunks in Missouri

Posted on by Tim Hurst

For all of you who have been following my adventures running marathons I thank you but the time I have dreaded has finally come. The ‘Running for the Ranch Marathon’ in Springfield, Missouri was my 13th marathon total and my 11th state. What I’m trying to say is that I’ve almost run out of local western states to run in and am now having to go further away to find a state in which I still need. My Family is starting to get tired of following me from state to state and so it is getting harder to find someone to go with me and share the driving.

Riley enjoying a stop at Denny's

Thank goodness I was able to get my Step-son Riley to come along since Springfield, Missouri is a 20 hour drive one-way from my house in South Jordan, Utah. Even though it is December the weather cooperated very well and the drive there wasn’t so bad. We were excited to get there and driving 10 hour shifts was something we were both willing to do. Actually I didn’t want to tire myself out so Riley drove the lion’s share and I mostly rested in the back on the sleeping bag and of course there were the stops along the way to eat.
People are always saying to me, ‘You run marathons, you can’t gain any weight!’. Let me dispel this very big myth. You have to ‘carb up’ before a race or you will have no gas to run.

A full carb pre-race meal! Yum, yum

After a race you can’t seem to get enough food in your stomach to satisfy your ravenous hunger! I have to watch everything I eat or like everyone else I will gain weight.
This has got to be the most different marathon I have ever run. The first odd thing was the start time for the race. It started at 1:00pm in the afternoon. All my other marathons were in the early hours of the morning. I can only assume the race promoters decided since it is in the middle of December and freezing cold that they would have it start mid-day to take advantage of the heat from the sun.

Do you see Santa Claus back there?

Whatever the reason it was about 40 degrees at the start of the race so I guess their idea was logical. However there was a problem with this because the sun set at 5:15pm and so we were left to run in the cold darkness at the end of the race. Oh, well. Next was the coarse. We ran 8 times around a 3.2 mile loop on the Missouri State University Campus.

Second biggest bear I've ever seen!

I’m used to going to a city that I’ve never been before and really getting to see it by running 26.2 miles around, through, over, under and in-between the entire city. By the end of the race I feel that I have really had one heck of tour through this area. It’s wonderful seeing different homes and businesses and scenes that most people would never get to view because the car they were in was traveling way to fast to see anything. Not this time but I did get a great view of 3.2 miles around the University however.

The race itself was very well organized with plenty of water stations and real honest to goodness bathrooms with flushing toilets and sinks with running water! I hate the Porta-Potty and I’m sure anyone who has ever used one hates them too.
This was a fairly small marathon with about 170 people finishing but I still saw a few people who in the spirit of fun had dressed up.

She wore 'jingle bells' and tinkled as she ran!

We had a fully outfitted Santa Claus and 3 completely decked out Elves, very fun. There were also a few extremely serious runners who flew past me about 6 or 7 times to finish in under 3 hours. Riley was so nice and ran the first and the last loops with me. He also ran short distances with me on each loop I passed by. I ran with a lady I met named Claire. She had run over 65 marathons total and this marathon would be her 50th state! She was awarded a plaque at the end of the race commemorating her 50th marathon in 50 states. Way to go Claire!

Filling my very empty stomach at the Steak n' Shake

After the race before we headed home Riley and I ate lunch at the ‘Steak n’ Shake’. It was a 50′s theme cafe where they had some of the best steak samiches(spelled wrong on purpose) and shakes!

He may be belly up but he still packs a powerful smell!


On the trip home we stopped and refueled somewhere in Missouri and the smell of skunk almost took us out. We stopped again to gas up in Kansas and was once more assaulted by skunk smell. The same thing happened in Colorado and Wyoming. I was starting to believe the entire western U.S. stunk of skunk! When I got home I parked the Vue in the garage and went in the house. The next morning I was leaving to go to work and when I walked into the garage the smell of skunk almost gave me brain damage. Apparently somewhere in Missouri I ran over a skunk and he got lodged under my car and I carried him across 5 states stinking all the way!

California Dreamin’

Posted on by Tim Hurst

My daughter Danielle looking very pregnant

When I was signing up for the Santa Barbara Marathon I realized it was very close to my Daughter Danielle’s due date. I knew if I were in California running a marathon instead of sitting next to her hospital bed holding her hand while she was in labor she would never talk to me ever again. My wife said I had to find out for sure from her doctor the due date and ask my Daughter’s permission to go run this race. Danielle had a check up and the doctor said she would most likely be a little late so she contacted me and gave me her blessing to go to Santa Barbara. She did make me promise that if by some UN-forseen occurrence she did go into labor that I would leave immediately and drive home to be with her in the hospital even if I was in the middle of the race. I agreed and got ready to go to California.
The race would be on Saturday the 12th and I was feeling great but as it always happens Murphy and his law showed up. You know Murphy’s law, ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’. On Wednesday the 2nd of November I woke up feeling terrible and got myself over to the clinic. I was told I have a bladder infection. If you are a little stunned by this well so was the doctor. He said that usually only women and little girls get bladder infections. Apparently it stemmed from my running. I don’t want to go into the details but let me just say it was awfully painful and I hope never to get another one of those. He gave me some antibiotics and that took care of it but I was unable to train for about 3 days and I think it really affected my performance at the marathon.

I pity the fool who gets a bladder infection before running a marathon!


Once again I had to drive to this one alone since I was unable to trick anyone to come with me. It was a long, boring uneventful drive. I had made arrangements to stop at my Mom’s house first in Simi Valley and eat dinner with her and my family there and then drive the extra hour and fifteen minutes to Santa Barbara to pick up my packet. By the time I got to the marathon expo and got my packet I had been driving over 12 hours and was completely pooped. I pulled into a parking lot that I hoped was near the bus stop that would shuttle me to the race the next morning. I wasn’t really sure where I was or where the start of the race was or where to meet the shuttle bus all I knew was that I needed sleep so I parked and crawled into the back of my Saturn and slept the sleep of the dead until my alarm rang the next morning at 5:00am. I dreamed that I was in a was in a war and the enemy kept throwing stones all night on our bunker. When my alarm woke me up the noise of the rain hitting the top of my car was deafening. As I started to get dressed the rain miraculously stopped and didn’t start again until after I had crossed the finish line (freaky). I got my gear on and stepped out of my car (poor mans-hotel-command center) and low and behold I had just by sheer luck and coincidence parked right next to the shuttle bus pickup to the start of the race!
The race course was very beautiful. We moved along the rolling hills and landscaped lawns of the neighborhoods of this upscale California community.

I use two pairs of shoes when I train switching them every-other-day and then after three months I retired them forever and buy two new pairs to replace the old ones. I also replace the insoles of both pairs every month. My shoes were right on the time line I use to replace them but I thought I’d cheap out and use them one last time on this marathon. Bad idea, very bad idea. Because of the lack of support I suffered some really bad bruises on the ball of my foot. I did this once before when I ran the Washington Marathon and made myself a promise not to cheap out. I should have listened to me. Being a cheapskate when it comes to your running shoes is never a good thing.
My finish time was 5 hours and 44 minutes and hey for a guy with one leg that’s not too bad. After the race I made my way from Santa Barbara back to Simi Valley where my Mom lives. I showered and let her spoil me by making dinner. Usually after a race I just can’t get full. I eat for about 3 days following a marathon but not this time. My Mom made so much for me to eat I was full for three days afterwards. My two brothers, Scott and Jim were there and the three of us watched T.V. and ate dinner together. I haven’t been alone with my Mom and brothers in probably 30 years or more.

Tired but feeling great


The drive home was long but very satisfying after a really nice marathon and knowing that I was bringing back another medal for a job well done.

One man, one leg, one heck of a storm!

Posted on by Tim Hurst

When I left South Jordan, Utah on my way to the Denver, Colorado Rock n’ Roll Marathon I had no idea what I was getting myself in to. This would be marathon number 11 and the first one I would go to by myself. My wife Lynette or one of my children usually accompanies me but I was unable to get anyone to go with me for this one. It was early October and the weather in the Salt Lake area was a little cool but nothing too bad. When I got up to the Park City ski area after driving for about forty minutes since leaving the house I hit a snow storm. It wasn’t coming down too hard and after all I am from Utah and used to a little snow, not usually in October though, so I wasn’t that worried. My trusty Saturn still had it’s ‘summer tires’ on instead of my super ‘winter tires’ but again I wasn’t too concerned. The snow increased and by the time I got to Wyoming it was getting really bad. The roads weren’t plowed very good and I saw several cars off to the side of the freeway. I had left at 5:00am so I had plenty of day light and my GPS told me it would only be an 8 hour drive so that gave me some hope that I wouldn’t have to drive in the darkness. The storm increased and I had to slow down from 75mph to 50mph. The real scare came when somewhere in the middle of ‘Nowhere, Wyoming’ the pickup truck in front of me which was pulling a recreational trailer started do a fish-tail! The driver after several attempts could not correct it and just flew off the road and into the ditch. After seeing this the other pickup truck on my left slammed on his brakes which started him fish-tailing as well and this continued for a minute or so until he landed in the ditch as well! I was now all alone and freaking out. Just then for no reason my Saturn started to do the shimmie! It was now my turn to fish-tail out of control. Instead of hitting the brakes I took my foot off the gas and gripped the steering wheel hard and fought it out until I gained control. I slowed down to about 40mph and then began to say a HUGE prayer. It’s a good thing I run everyday and have a very strong heart or I might have had a coronary heart attack right there. My eyeballs were bugging out of my sockets and my head was pounding so loud I couldn’t hear. I figured I just stared Mr. Death right in the eye and lived to tell about it.
By the time I reached Denver the snow had been replaced by rain. Not normal rain but chubby rain. Rain so fat and chubby that my wipers couldn’t get the water off the windshield fast enough for me to see. Instead of being an eight hour drive it turned into about ten because of the decreased speed I had to maintain. When I got to the Denver Conference Center where I needed to pick up my race packet my arms and shoulders were exhausted and shaking from the death grip I had kept on the steering wheel.
The Marathon Expo was gigantic with over 150 booths. I walked around a bit and got my packet with my bib number and timing tag along with a map showing the course and starting and finishing areas. After leaving the Expo I drove over to the starting line just to make sure I knew where it was and set the location in my GPS then I was off to find something high in complex carbohydrates for dinner. Sounds delicious huh? I had been eating pasta and bread all week and was sick of it so I looked for a Chinese restaurant and had a big plate of rice and chicken. I was all alone and felt a little lonely so I sat next to a nice looking family so I could listen to their conversation and pretend I was with them. There was a dad, a mom, a 15-ish yr old boy and a 2-ish yr old baby boy in a high chair. Minutes after sitting down the 15 year old asked his mom if he could spend the night at his friend Tommy’s house. She said she didn’t like Tommy and his family because they were ‘Mormons’ and she doesn’t agree with Mormons having 8 wives! Her son then told her that Tommys dad only had one wife not 8. She told her son that was because they lived in Colorado and not Utah. She told him that in Utah it’s legal for Mormon men to have as many wives as they want but if they leave the state they can only take one with them. Wow, did I hit the jackpot or what? Here I am, a Mormon from Utah and the people next to me are so confused about my religion and my state I wasn’t sure if I should just sit there or jump up over the booth and set her straight. Where did she get this crap from? T.V.? Movies? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) has been around for almost 200 years with millions of members all over the world and people still have no idea about what we believe. I decided I was too tired from battling the snow and rain so I just sat there and ignored them. Next I had to figure out where to spend the night.
Denver is a huge city and there’s not a lot of open areas a guy can camp out at so I thought for a moment on what would be the best place to park and sleep at and then it came to me…Walmart. It has been my understanding that Walmart lets motorhomes park in their lots over night. I may not have a motorhome but it was worth a try. I found a Walmart very close to the start of the race and pulled into the parking lot. I crawled in the back of my Saturn Vue where I had a thick foam pad laid out and several sleeping bags and fell fast asleep. The next morning at 4:30am my alarm woke me up and looking around I could see I was the only car in the lot. No one disturbed me all night. As far as I knew I was perfectly safe and sound all night. I love Walmart. The sky was cloud free and looked like it was going to be a beautiful day for a marathon.
I drove to the starting line and parked in the lot just across the street then I got my running gear on and made my way to the starting line. There were about 15,000 thousand runners and the place was like a small city. The energy and excitement of all the participants is hard to describe. It’s addicting and anyone who has ever run a marathon knows exactly what I mean. Immediately people started to approach me and ask me about my prosthetic leg. All assumed I was there to run the half marathon or a 5k or 10k. The looks of amazement I got when I let them know I was there for the full 26.2 mile marathon was great. I had several people ask if they could snap a few photos of me and everyone seemed interested in how I became an amputee and how it was possible to do what I do. Most of us are taught beginning from when we are very young that when something bad happens to you the best thing to do is to curl up in a ball and give up. Someone will then take care of you. We are also taught that no one will ever expect anything from you if you have a physical challenge. If I sat at home all day and refused to do anything most people would never have the guts to tell me to get off my lazy butt and go accomplish something. I guess what I’m saying is never give up. Never let anyone tell you that your dreams are too unrealistic and you’ll never complete them. Find a way to improvise, adapt and overcome. Commit yourself to proving all the nay-Sayers wrong. It doesn’t matter how big or how small your dreams are. It doesn’t even matter if you have a handicap or not. Everybody has dreams but most of us are too afraid to see them realized. The best things I’ve done I did when I was the most afraid. By the way driving to a city in another state I’ve never been to before, all by myself, in a snow storm and sleeping in a Walmart parking lot to then run a marathon is very, very scary.

That's a nice medal. No Bull!

The marathon was wonderful. Very well organized, beautiful coarse, great people. The Denver Police and all the other volunteers deserve a big Thank You. They did a fantastic job. A marathon would be impossible without all the great people that take their time to help out. I almost forgot to mention that this was a Rock ‘n Roll Marathon as well so that means lots and lots of great music to get you moving! Other note worthy occurrences were…I saw Elvis running! I saw Mario of Super Mario Brothers running! And my favorite were about half a dozen guys dressed up in full Spartan garb complete with swords, helmets and shields running! As I ran past them I yelled in my most commanding voice,”Spartans!”, to which they all answered by barking out,”HUHHH!”, in perfect unison. My time was right around five and one half hours which is pretty decent and the drive home after the race was full of clear blue skies and not a single trace of the snow that had fallen the day before.

Sunriver Oregon Marathon -Running for the Ta-ta’s- A race with a cause

Posted on by Tim Hurst

The Sunriver, Oregon Marathon was organized to help benefit those with breast cancer. When I got to the resort and made my way to the packet pick-up room I had a surprise waiting for me…rubber breasts on the table. Yes, you read correctly about half a dozen full size rubber breasts. My Son David had come with me on this adventure just like he did in Oklahoma and the Bear River marathons. We were both invited to squeeze each one and see if we could find the lump(s) in them. As if this wasn’t awkward enough on the same table were pink t-shirts for sale that read…’Running for the Ta-ta’s’ on the front of them. God bless people who dedicate their time, money and effort to such a wonderful cause but I’m not very comfortable squeezing rubber breasts with my 27 year old son and wearing pink shirts with the word “Ta-ta’s” on them. We left the packet pick-up area and went down to an area called the Village to look for a restaurant for dinner. The Sunriver Resort is a beautiful country club style resort located in the Oregon forests. There are cabin homes surrounding the resort itself and all kinds of fun activities including a golf course, tennis courts, bike and boat rental shops, restaurants, gift shops, gyms and spas. We found an incredible Italian place and as always I filled myself with pasta and bread. Then, being the frugal man that I am we settled down in the back of my Saturn Vue for the night. I am trying to do all these marathons on a budget so I just can’t see ponying up the dough for a lavish room when sleeping in the back of my SUV works just fine. For the record, when I awoke the next morning and stumbled over to the porta-potty in the parking lot I noticed several other runners who had slept in the back of their cars as well so I’m not the only cheap skate running marathons. The race started at 7:00am and it was a very chilly 48 degrees. I love the cooler weather and do much better in the low temperatures. I always freak the poor volunteers out when I hand them my goody bag with a prosthetic leg sticking out of the top. I explained to them that my artificial leg costs more then $10,000 bucks and if they lose it I’d be ‘foot loose and fancy free’. When I make jokes about being an amputee most people aren’t sure if it’s OK to laugh or if they should just give me a blank stare. After I let them know ‘it’s a joke people’ then I usually get a round of laughter from everyone near. This course was beautiful and very well marked. There were plenty of volunteers at every turn to keep you on track so you never got lost. There were ample porta-potty’s and water stations every couple of miles. What can I say, the first half of the marathon was very uneventful because the race was so well planned out all I had to worry about was just running. Towards the second half of the race I began to run next to a fellow named Phillip. He had a thick accent that I thought might be from England. He corrected me by saying he was from South Africa. I told him I had visited England once and he asked me if I had gotten the ‘spotted dick’ while I was there. I am a bit naive I suppose so when someone says something to me that makes me uncomfortable or confuses me I’ll try to make a joke to lighten things up a bit. So after a few awkward seconds of silence I said, “I thought I may have had it once but I got a penicillin shot and it cleared it right up.” Phillip was snacking on some energy bites at the time and began laughing so hard he started choking on them. He had to stop running and bend over so me and another runner could smack him on the back and dislodge the bite. After getting his breath back and running again he explained to me that spotted dick was a type of pudding with dried fruit in it. Apparently it is a favorite desert dish in England. Who knew? He also asked me not to make any more jokes until the marathon was over. I had altered my diet and exercise for this race which really paid off. By mile 25 I was still going strong and felt great. At the finishers circle there was watermelon and grapes waiting for us in great big bowls! They had massage tables and snacks plus plenty of water waiting. I saw my buddy Philip getting a massage and went over to talk to him. The Masseuse had him flat on his stomach and was twisting his leg in some position that resembled a midieval torture. I asked him if he needed my help to get the guy off of him. Once again he began to laugh out loud only this time he wasn’t snacking so he didn’t choke thank goodness. The Masseuse and everyone else around us started laughing too. They were a great audience. All and all this was my favorite marathon and the one to beat.