Macon Magazine

December 2024/January 2025 | maconmagazine.com 43 that are safe – from the enemy, your mind. I go out there to Central City Park, and to the river, Amerson River Park. The roads could be a little bit better, but mostly I try to stay on places that have sidewalks. See, a lot of people – when I'm running, people I don't even know blow their horn and wave. I guess they know me or want to cheer, or something like that. I'm always getting blowed at, waved at: "Keep it up!" Stuff like that. They say, "That's good!" I get a lot of that. What's your training regimen? I do either four miles or more every day. I got a running group that I run with on Tuesdays and Thursdays that we do five miles in the morning starting at 6 AM. Have you missed days and felt it? Yeah, I have. I leave and say, "Ain't going to run today!" Later on that day, I regret it. I wish I had gotten up. So if I don't feel it, I get up and do it anyway. I feel better afterwards. If you could say anything to someone who's considering running, especially later in life, what would you say to someone? I have people come up to me and say they couldn't do it. I say, all you have to do is get out there and put one foot in front of you. You don't have to do those whole miles at one time. Go out there. Run a little bit, walk a little bit, run a little bit, walk. Just do it every day. Do a little bit and build yourself up. You'll get to the mileage that you want to be able to run. If you want to run a marathon, get out there and do this run-walk routine for six months until you build yourself up to be able to run a longer distance. I feel like I got to do it every day. "I have people come up to me and say they couldn't do it. I say, all you have to do is get out there and put one foot in front of you." Looking to try your first race? Check out the race calendar at Macon Tracks Running Club and commit to a healthier 2025 at macontracks.org just amazed that I could run, especially at the age that I was. I have some people that started running because of me. I walked in once and [someone] said, "I could tell you're a runner." It just made me realize how people can look at you and tell you what you do. I didn't know how she knew it. I don't feel my age. I think it keep me loose, keeps me moving, keeps my mind straight. I've been doing it so long, it just doesn't feel any different. It's just part of life. You started running later in life, which is an unusual way to prioritize your wellness. What would you recommend to people who are as they age? Well, I'm not saying that you're not going to ever get sick or have a heart attack. Like I say, no matter what kind of shit you're in, if a heart attack's going to come, it's going to come. But it can help. It can help to stay active. It all involved running for me. My life goal now is to do all the major marathons and to run all seven continents. I had started it before the pandemic, but that canceled a whole lot of travel. I had two countries already paid for, China and Ireland. I have ran in South America, and I've done the Boston Marathon, but that's about it. I've been to all 50 states. If I hadn't been running, I wouldn't have. Thinking about Macon a little bit, I'm sure you've seen some things running around Macon. What do you see in your hometown? I'm pretty fond of Macon. I haven't really seen too many problems yet. There's a lot of people here in Macon that do the same thing I do. I don't know about going out of state, but they run a lot of races. I see just about every weekend, the same people out there running. We do have an active community here. You've got a lot of places you can run I started doing a whole lot of 5Ks and 10Ks around Georgia, local races. There were flyers all over the place that tell you what race is where. I've been prepping for it since then. Can you say what it was about running that felt good? It just felt good running to know that you can do it. I did a lot of running while I was military, but it wasn't as vigorous as I do now. What brought you to military service? I served July '73 and I retired in July '93. It is a very disciplined unit. I was security police in the Air Force for 20 years. We had a recruiter came to my school when I was in high school, and they talked to us, and I just ended up there. I went down to join the Marines, but I walked into the wrong office. Connect us back to that moment. Where did you grow up? I grew up in Macon, Georgia. I went to Minnie Butler grammar school. I have no family out there [in Bellevue] now, but they're still here in Macon. Well, when integration started my last year, they took me from there and sent me to Pearl Stephenson. I went to high school at Bibb Tech – [once known as] Douglas Hughes, in the downtown area. Now the building is still the hospital down there. Down there across from that basketball court [on Forsyth Street]. It was the Air Force recruiter that came there. But when I went down there to join up, I didn't look at the sign. I just walked in. I wanted to walk into the Marines, but I walked into the Air Force. I joined right after high school, left for Lackland Air Force Base. I'm 69 now. I'll be 70 in December. In the Air Force, I ran regularly, twice a year, a mile and a half. It was timed. You had to do it under 13 minutes. But I didn't seriously start running until 2002. So why do you run? You meet a lot of people all over, from across the United States. They tell you their experience. It's just fun. And afterwards, your body felt good. I don't have much pain. I've had a lot of people that had come up to me that are

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