June Health Hero Richard Palmer

For most people, finishing one marathon is a challenge. Not for Richard Palmer. This 49 year old set a goal to run a marathon in every state before his 50^th birthday. With just 9 more states to go, he's close - he'll check off all 50 states just 3 months after his 50^th.

Richard is a transit operator at North Base. He's been with King County for 11 years. He ran his first marathon in 1996 in Seattle. It wasn't very good - he hadn't trained well. So he thought that was it. But in 2002 Richard's cousin wanted company running a marathon in Vancouver B.C. Training helped that marathon go better - so well in fact that Richard ran in a time that qualified him for the Boston Marathon. So he set his sights on that for 2003.

While working on keeping up his training, Richard discovered that the easiest way to stay in shape for a marathon is to keep running them. So he thought he might as well run one in each state. Richard plans his year in advance, paying race fees and organizing travel at the start of the year. This helps to keep Richard motivated throughout the year. He looks for events where he can run one race on Saturday and another one in a neighboring state the following weekend. This lets him tick off more runs during his annual vacation time. By the end of 2009, he'll have checked 8 marathons off his list.

For Richard it's about using the challenge to stay in shape. Richard says "The whole thing for me is just to keep moving. In my 20s and early 30s, I was out of shape. Very out of shape. One day I realized enough is enough and started running. I did small runs, then a ½ marathon and found out I was pretty good at it."

Every race is a little different. Some are huge, loud and crowded. Some are quiet trail runs where it's just Richard and his I-pod. He's run with as many as 40,000 people and as few as 19. But before every race, Richard eats a Rice Krispy treat and after every race, he treats himself to a nice dinner with a glass of wine or beer. "It's very easy for me to gain weight so that's one of the reasons I do this - to keep my weight down. It's a myth that runners can eat and eat and eat all they want and not gain anything. I do have to eat more than sedentary people, but unfortunately it's not carte blanche at the buffet. I'm one of the few people who can leave town, run 2 marathons and come back weighing 4 pounds more than when I started."

"Some people would consider this a sickness - my mother does. I'm not really sure what I'll do after the 50^th state, except I know I'm going to treat myself to 2 weeks overseas in late 2010. I'm already looking at the international calendar to see if there's a race there in 2010. Some people do races on all the continents, so maybe I'll do that next, or do a second lap around the 50 states." Richard has no plans to ease up after this challenge. He looks to Walter Westmoreland, an operator at North Base who is over 70 years old and still doing races. Walter motivates Richard. In turn, Richard shared his stories with Joel Troutman at North Base and last year, Joel did the Seattle Marathon for the first time.

Richard says, "All you need is to get a training plan and stick to it. If you're relatively healthy and at a decent weight, anyone can do a marathon."

Hum. Maybe. But can they do 50?

• Hottest marathon: Chicago. 92 degrees, 90% humidity
• Coldest marathon: Kansas. 26 degrees. The sweat froze into icicles on my hat.
• Hardest marathon: Delaware. Trail marathon through the mountains. Also my slowest time.
• Easiest marathon: None of them. They were all hard.
• Fastest time: Vancouver B.C. - 3 hours 18 mins
• Slowest marathon: Delaware - 4 hours 51 mins
• Highest finish: Gateway to the Pacific, Washington - 4th place
• Lowest finish: Grandma's Marathon in Minnesota - 971st place
• Most favorite marathon: Boston. Everyone's goal to run it. The only one where you have to qualify to get into.
• Number of marathons run on back to back weekends:  10