The marathon quest
Mike Willets has run 54 marathons in 50 states and D.C. since 1999.
Date City State Marathon Time
Nov. 1999 Columbus Ohio Columbus 3:59.11
May 2000 Pittsburgh Pa. UPMC 4:19.22
Oct. 2000 Detroit Mich. Free Press 3:37.34
June 2001 South Bend Ind. Sunburst 3:33.02
Oct. 2001 Chicago Ill. LaSalle Bank 3:25.58
Oct. 2002 Washington D.C. Marine Corps 3:43.54
Apr. 2002 Boston Mass. Boston 3:57.30
June 2002 Williamson W.Va. Hatfields & McCoys 4:11.50
April 2003 Louisville Ky. Derby Festival 3:36.37
June 2003 Duluth Minn. Grandma’s 3:35.11
Oct. 2003 Milwaukee Wisc. Lakefront 3:32.25
Feb. 2004 New Orleans La. Mardi Gras 3:45.20
June 2004 Deadwood S.D. Michelson Trail 4:43.47
Nov. 2004 Tulsa Okla. Oklahoma 3:35.09
March 2005 Little Rock Ark. Little Rock 3:49.51
May 2005 Burlington Vt. Key Bank VCM 3:44.05
Sept. 2005 Des Moines Iowa IMT 4:20.05
Jan. 2006 Houston Texas Chevron 3:40.58
May 2006 Wilmington Del. Christiana Health 3:43.40
July 2006 San Francisco Calif. Chronicle 4:05.40
Nov. 2006 Richmond Va. Sun Trust 4:00.30
Jan. 2007 Mobile Ala. Legg-Mason 3:52.17
March 2007 Sarasota Fla. Grouper 3:55.54
April 2007 Long Branch N.J. New Jersey 3:49.56
July 2007 Missoula Mont. Missoula 3:56.36
Nov. 2007 Kitty Hawk N.C. Outer Banks 3:50.48
Jan. 2008 Phoenix Ariz. Rock n Roll 3:57.59
Feb. 2008 Myrtle Beach S.C. Bi-Lo 4:05.35
March 2008 Atlanta Ga. ING 4:04.03
April 2008 Nashville Tenn. Country Music 4:01.57
May 2008 Fargo N.D. Fargo 4:11.43
June 2008 Kona Hawaii Kona 4:15.20
Oct. 2008 Denver Colo. ING 3:57.25
Jan. 2009 Biloxi Miss. MS Blues 4:17.41
March 2009 Piney Point Md. Lower Potomac 4:00.02
April 2009 St. Louis Mo. GO! 3:49.05
May 2009 Coeur d’Alene Idaho CDA 3:57.36
July 2009 Salt Lake City Utah Deseret News 4:05.15
Sept. 2009 Omaha Neb. Omaha 3:58.09
Oct. 2009 Cleveland Ohio Towpath 3:50.15
Nov. 2009 Manchester N.H. Manchester 4:01.55
Dec. 2009 Las Vegas Nev. Rock n Roll 3:41.04
Feb. 2010 Albany N.Y. Hudson-Mohawk 4:00.51
Feb. 2010 Fort Lauderdale Fla. AIA 3:59.26
Mar. 2010 Las Cruces N.M. Bataan Memorial 4:31.05
April 2010 Olathe Kan. Olathe 4:11.30
May 2010 Cheyenne Wyo. Wyoming 4:48.27
June 2010 Seattle Wash. Rock n Roll 3:52.53
Oct. 2010 Portland Maine Maine 3:58.05
Oct. 2010 Newport R.I. Amica 4:11.34
Dec. 2010 Roxbury Conn. Roxbury Races 4:26.25
Apr. 2011 Boston Mass. Boston 3:53.53
May 2011 Eugene Ore. Eugene 3:56.13
June 2011 Anchorage Alaska Mayors 3:57.14
SPRINGFIELD — All the marathons blend together for Mike Willets, the miles and the memories forming a scrapbook in his mind.
There were the fans in Boston throwing high-fives his way until his shoulder hurt. He remembers the lava field on the course in Hawaii, the humidity in Mississippi that left him feeling like a limp dishrag, the stone fences along the course in the Connecticut countryside and the human traffic jam early in the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C.
Growing up near Detroit, Willets was the skinny kid who always got picked last in gym class. At 57, after six years as an athletic trainer at Northwestern High School, 26 at South and now three at Springfield, he’s still skinny. He’d have to be with all the miles he runs.
On June 18, he ran his 54th marathon, completing a lifetime goal of running 50 marathons in 50 states at the Mayors Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska. It took him 12 years to hit every state. If he ran all 54 consecutively, starting at Buck Creek State Park, one of his favorite training spots, the journey could take him as far as Albuquerque, N.M. — 1,414 miles from Springfield.
Willets’ quest began in Columbus in 1999. His friends at the New Carlisle YMCA, where he used to work out, had urged him to run a marathon.
“I had the same response everyone else has,” Willets said. “That’s 26.2 miles. That’s a long way to drive. Why would I want to run that far? They kept at it. Finally, I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ ”
The marathon hooked Willets before he even crossed the finish line for the first time.
“I told my wife when I’m 80 years old and sitting in a rocking chair, I can say I did a marathon,” Willets said. “When I finished, it was an incredible thing. It’s just a sense of accomplishment.”
Willets has finished every marathon he has started. Running 26.2 miles is always as difficult — and often more difficult — as it sounds. Several times Willets has hit the infamous wall, the point of mental and physical breakdown feared by runners.
At his third marathon in 2000 in Detroit, not far from where he was born and raised, he had to stop every 100 meters as he neared the finish. By the 22-mile mark, he felt he was running backwards as he passed mile markers he thought he had seen already.
At the Boston Marathon in 2002, his seventh marathon and sixth state, he was so excited he ran too fast at the beginning, his energy boosted by the thousands of fans lining the route grilling out on Patriots Day and offering beer and hot dogs to the runners. Willets carried a disposable camera with him, snapping photos as he ran. Past the halfway point, as the course passed by female-only Wesley College and hundreds of screaming college girls, he was still feeling great.
“They tell you, ‘Be careful. Be careful,’ ” Willets said. “Because the first 10 miles are downhill. You’re so geeked up. You’re stoked. It’s Boston. You’re just going to let it all hang out.”
At mile 17, his fast pace caught up with him. He tore a quadriceps muscle. He got some ice, held it against his muscle and kept going. That’s what you’ve got to do to finish, and it’s advice Willets would give to any new runner.
“Every marathon, you know there’s going to be pain,” Willets said. “The only advice I give is the truth is out there somewhere. If you want to finish it, you’ll figure out the pace — walking, running, whatever.”
If going out too fast is a problem, so is going too slow. At the Marine Corps Marathon in October 2002 in Washington, D.C., his sixth marathon, Willets made the mistake of starting the race with runners aiming for a time of 4 hours, 30 minutes. With 17,000 people in the race, runners are grouped according to their times. Willets expected to finish in 3:45. He found himself caught in human traffic for the first few miles.
“It just took me forever to get through that and up to where I should be,” Willets said. “I ended up running a negative split (his miles at the end were faster than at the beginning). I had so much energy at the end.”
At his most recent marathon in Alaska, Willets was joined by many other runners chasing the 50-state goal. A number of fellow members of the Marathon Maniacs, a club that encourages runners to chase specific goals like two marathons in 16 days or six in six months, also raced.
Willets’ wife Sue and his daughter Hillary cheered him on. Hillary’s boyfriend Nick Petro, a runner at Eastern Michigan University, ran the half marathon and was the first overall finisher in a field of 574.
Willets managed a time of 3 hours, 57 minutes, 14 seconds on a course not typical of most marathons. Runners raced on bike trails at times and on single-track trails at others. He placed sixth out of 22 in the 55-59 age group.
Now that he has achieved his 50-state dream, Willets could turn his attention to running in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories. He’s checked, and there are marathons in every one. He could decide to run a marathon on every continent. There is a marathon in Antarctica, and Willets learned you can run a marathon the week before in Argentina, knocking off two continents in one trip.
“We’ll just have to wait and see,” he said Tuesday, while still on vacation in Alaska.
Sitting near him, Sue Willets said it would depend “on how nice his wife is.”
“We’ve been able to meet some great people and see a lot of scenery and go to places maybe we wouldn’t have thought about going,” Mike said. “It gives you a reason to go.”
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