Roger and Me

Runners are a friendly bunch, and share a kindred spirit with one another. One of the highlights of doing road races is meeting and conversing with fellow runners at these events, be it a local 5K or a marathon several states away. During last weekend's Sunburst Marathon, I had the pleasure of meeting a nice gentleman from England named Roger Biggs, a humble man closing in on a tremendous accomplishment.

I ran alongside Roger for about a mile, beginning around the 9-mile marker. After exchanging pleasantries, our conversation turned to typical runner talk related to the course, goals for the day and other races we'd done. Turns out Roger is the chairman of the 100 Marathon Club in the U.K. and had completed a whopping 404 marathons. That wasn't a typo -- four hundred and four marathons.

Of his 400 marathons, Roger had run one on all seven continents (including Antarctica), and he is attempting to become the first person from Great Britain to run a marathon in all 50 states while living in his native England. Based on his research, Roger said other Brits had completed the 50 state marathon quest, but those individuals had lived in the U.S. during parts or all of their quest.

Roger said he simply uses many of his holidays to come to the United States and do races, sometimes doing a marathon in one state during one weekend and then traveling to another state to do another race the next weekend. Other times, he takes a long weekend, jets to the U.S., runs a race and jets back.

Roger had 44 different states down on his list (I'm assuming the Sunburst in Indiana made 45), and he said he plans to finish his 50 state quest at the Honolulu Marathon in Hawaii this December. I enjoyed sharing a mile with Roger on his journey, and I wish him well the rest of the way.