85-year old man logs 50,000th mile running
MARION - Like Forest Gump in the 1994 movie, Marion resident Guy
"Pete" Peterson started running as a child and still hasn't stopped.
Peterson logged sprints to the mailbox as a child, then ran in the
military, and extended to jogs between home and school jobs in Creal
Springs and Pittsburg. And he's still going.
The simple reason: "I had to get off my duffer to keep up with (wife)
Yolande," he chuckled.
Or, in a slightly more serious tone: "It's like anything else, I got
addicted to running. Look at 1972 when I ran 2,200 miles. I got
carried away with it."
Unlike the movie character, Peterson began tracking his mileage in
1966 and recently, at age 85, logged his 50,000th mile in 42 years of
records.
"I wanted to slow off the numbers, but they became a part of me," he
said. "As I progressed, I wondered if I could run around the equator
(24,901 miles) twice and 50,000 became an obsession with me. The last
four or five years I wanted to reach 50,000 and thought, 'what if
something happened to me? What if I got sick?'"
Stacks of calendars tell the rest of the story. He charted each
outing amidst other reminders on small monthly calendars for 42
years, and his Oct. 30, 2007, inscription signals victory: "42 years
running. Show is over."
"It was a relief to get it in," he said.
Peterson was surprised when contacted for a story. A family member
had tipped off the MDR to his accomplishment. The story comes four
years after another story documenting Peterson's induction into the
Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
"I like to talk about Creal Springs girls basketball, but it's not
the easiest thing in the world to talk about myself. I'm not going to
soapbox about it."
The pressure is off, but the miles keep adding up. As of December 5,
Pete had recorded 50,102 miles.
"I asked him if he was going to do the equator and be done, then he
just kept running," Yolande said. "Then he went onto 50. I said,
'what are you going to do? Go for 60?'"
The numbers might only scratch the surface of legs in constant motion
since childhood.
"Growing up, I remember my mother saying 'you run a lot. When you go
to the mailbox you run.'" Peterson recalled. "I didn't know what I
was doing, I just ran rather than walking. I just found activity came
natural for me."
As a military man, he thought he upstaged some of his elders during
drills with instances like a 10-mile march in which some rode jeeps
and he hoofed the distance.
Williamson County pavement reeked of burned rubber once he began a
career in education. Peterson served as principal of the former
Pittsburg school and Creal Springs School and coached basketball
along the way. He lived in Marion at this time while his parents and
a sister resided near the end of Old Route 13 in Carterville.
That created three more routes to trek.
"I would run to see my folks, change clothes while I was there, visit
with them, leave the old sweats there and run back home," Peterson
said. "I would run from Creal home and have a teacher bring my car in."
After a few years of running, townspeople noticed Peterson's regimen,
stirring an interest in charting the jogs for personal satisfaction.
"I was keeping records only for myself," he said. "Those are
authentic. Whatever is down is down and I didn't want to enlarge on
it because I only thought I was keeping record for myself."
Peterson logged 4,457 miles from 1966-1969, then exploded for his
best-charted decade with 15,203 in the 1970s followed by 11,411 in
the '80s and 11,127 in the '90s. Another 7,802 miles are in the books
this decade.
"I'm pretty proud of him," Yolande said. "He'd come in and say he ran
15 or 16 miles. I'd pick him up or take him and dump him out. He'd
come in and say he wished I would've been with him."
As long as Marion pavement is safe for pedestrians, Peterson will
likely keep up his running, even if it's not at the same vigorous
pace of past years pushing to reach the milestone mileage. Still, his
feet may outrun Gump and many other film stars by the time his
running shoes take their last pavement pounding.