Marshall Ulrich and Charlie Engle had taken the better part of a year to organize a 3,100-mile run from San Francisco to New York. Their goals were to strongly support the United Way, and to make the beauty and strength of the United States of America more visible to the rest of the world. An enormous physical and mental challenge was also involved, of course. The entire adventure, which started in September 2008 and was dubbed Running America, would be captured on film and made into a documentary.

By the time he reached Utah, Charlie had been derailed from further running by excruciating injuries. He carried on as part of the team by riding a mountain bike the rest of the way. Marshall and his wife, Heather, became good friends of ours through visiting Houston on a speaking engagement and organizing our trip to Tanzania earlier in 2008. As soon as we learned of Marshall’s incredible goal, we wanted to be part of it, even if only in some small way.

Sunday My wife, Barb, my brother-in-law Larry and I picked the weekend of October 17-19 to join Marshall since, according to Marshall’s plan, he would be running through Ohio then. Our original plan was to fly to Cincinnati on Friday afternoon, find Marshall on the road somewhere in Ohio on Saturday morning, run Saturday and Sunday with him, and fly out later on Sunday. However, Marshall discovered fairly early on that his original plan of 68-mile days did not leave enough time for sleep and recovery, so he revised his daily target to 60-mile days. Saturday was day 36 of Running America, and Marshall was around 400 miles behind his original plan. So, we delayed our departure until Sunday and started driving west—through western Ohio, Indiana, and eastern Illinois—to meet up with the expedition.

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Marshall Ulrich (left), Barb, and Larry. Anyone up for 60 miles?

Steve Shepard photo

After six hours of driving, we found ourselves westbound on Illinois Highway 116 just west of Peoria when we passed two large RVs heading east, which we took as a very good sign. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later Barb announced “There he is!” and in traditional style, we pulled over, rolled down the window, and announced “Looking good! Almost there!”—the usual trash-talking silliness.

Marshall was indeed looking good and was very happy to see us. We pulled over by the RVs, and I changed quickly into running clothes and prepared to take off in pursuit. “Not so fast!” called Heather as she came over with waivers for us to complete and official Running America bibs. We took care of legal business, and I took off running.

From the Running America Web site, we had estimated that Marshall would have run about 25 miles by then, which he confirmed when I caught up with him. He was cheerful but also tired from the day’s effort and ready for his daily ritual of a one-hour nap after mile 26. So my run lasted only about 10 minutes. I had expected a lot of walking and maybe a little jogging, but Marshall was motoring right along at nine-minute miles. We exchanged pleasantries and I told him about our big drive to meet up with him. His response was unexpected: “Well, I don’t want to disappoint you, but mostly I need to run alone so I can get in a zone and get through the miles.” Soon thereafter, he slipped into his RV for his nap.

Wow, that was a blow! We had been planning this for most of the year and had invested a fair amount of time, effort, and expense. Still, in no way was this about us; it was all about the man running 3,100 miles across America.

After a while, Heather popped out of the RV looking like somebody working a dozen or so tasks simultaneously. I added a 13th: “How much running will we be doing, and how do we find out Marshall’s preferences?” She responded that Marshall hates to say no, but running with others tires him out. She had been teaching him to say no, however, and he was getting

better at it. She said to simply ask him and be ready to abide by his preference. We knew from his blog that he had run 34 miles the night before with an old Badwater comrade. Well, time would tell how this would play out. Marshall emerged from his RV 90 minutes later, preparing for 34 more miles of running. I asked if he would like company, and he said sure. I told him he needed to let me know when he wanted or didn’t want company, whether he wanted to talk or not, and so forth. He said he would but that he needed to set the pace, so please run alongside or behind, but not in front. Done!

News of the outside world

Barb Shepard photo

Down the road we went. I had all sorts of topics lined up in my mind to chat about: Hurricane Ike, our Mount Kilimanjaro trek, news from the sporting world (he was delighted that Tampa Bay had made the World Series), news from the running world (he was beyond delighted that Geb had broken his own marathon world record at Berlin), and so forth. No sooner had I started yakking away than one of his vans pulled up and a guy climbed out, made his way to us, and handed Marshall a sampler from Taco Bell. Marshall started walking—he never stops, always moving forward—took in about 200 calories, and rolled back into a run. It turned out that this regimen happens every mile, thus 60 times per day!

▲ The author and Marshall, cruising through Illinois.

Marshall was taking in about 10,000 calories a day. (Think Michael Phelps.) His crew made grocery runs every other day at $150 a pop. He took in snacks from Long John Silver’s and A&W Root Beer during our running, along with all sorts of highly nutritious stuff. He said that eating had definitely become a chore, but he very much looked forward to his walking break every mile; he found those to be very sustaining.

A short time later, a TV reporter from Peoria trotted up and requested an interview. He asked very good questions but nothing Marshall hadn’t responded to dozens of times on the run. His responses were more polished than Obama’s stump speeches! The interview started on the run, but within two minutes the reporter requested that we continue walking. We carried on about six miles along a beautiful, rural two-lane highway with enough shoulder for safety.

We reached the outskirts of Peoria just about dusk. Marshall asked me to wait, ran across the street, and engaged in an extended discussion with the movie producer, Kate O’Neil. Several minutes later Marshall took off, and Kate said that I needed to climb into the crew van with her. She explained in detail that there were several tricky bits in Peoria that Marshall needed to do alone to ensure maximum focus and safety.

She had a sheet with a set of perhaps 30 route instructions and was on the phone pretty much nonstop with other crew members handling the logistics. She explained that crew members in Cleveland had organized routes, permits, and police escorts but that when they did their daily one-day drive ahead, they had found some surprises.

Just after nightfall we arrived at a bridge over the Illinois River in downtown Peoria—a mile long, four lanes, no median or shoulder, maximum speeds, and a big sign proclaiming No Pedestrians. Uh oh! This was what the planning was all about. Kate took the lead (complete with flashers) at 5 miles per hour. Marshall followed and the other crew van created a “Marshall sandwich.” Across the bridge we went. Then a bunch of tricky turns in a row, and Marshall was headed out of town. “

Ready to run?” he asked. “You bet!” It was just about 8:00 p.m. and eating up ground heading east through the suburbs of Peoria on the way to New York! Brilliant weather, good road, and a chance to be a small part of history in the making.

Barb and Larry were troopers, driving our van alongside and cheering every mile. They pulled in for pizza about 9:00 p.m. with plenty left for me, but by then it had been a long day, and they were ready to head to the motel.

I had run 12 miles, Marshall about 44. (He ended up having a very good day, polishing off his 60 miles just about midnight.) I offered him pizza, and his eyes got big. Yes! We drove about 30 miles to the Super 8 (a major Running America sponsor) in El Paso, Illinois. The motel had been decorated with a large Running

America banner and lots of drawings from the local school. It was the end of an outstanding day!

Monday

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Dr. Paul puts Marshall through his daily morning stretch and manipulation.

Steve Shepard photo

Marshall was chauffeured back to his Sunday finishing point at 8:00 Monday morning. He had finished his 60 miles and had gone to bed in the Super 8 around 1:00 a.m. Nevertheless, he looked weary—about what you would expect for a man who had run 2,100-plus miles in the last month. We took off in perfect weather on a two-lane country road in the middle of Illinois farming country. Larry hadn’t anticipated running, but when Marshall said he likes to start each day walking a mile or two, I pushed Larry out of the van to join Marshall and Barb.

Well, Marshall fibbed and was back to running within about two minutes. Larry was stuck but continued for three miles in his jeans. At that point, Marshall said he needed to carry on solo for a while. After two more miles Dr. Paul, part of Marshall’s crew, climbed out of his crew van, rolled out a mat, and said he would be doing Marshall’s nails. We took this at face value and were totally sucked in. It turned out that it was Marshall’s morning stretch and manipulation. Twenty minutes later, Marshall was back on the road.

A couple of miles farther down the road, Marshall invited me to join him, and I had the pleasure of covering the next 10 miles. It’s about as good as running gets: pristine weather, gorgeous countryside, and almost nonstop dialogue from the Babe Ruth of extreme running on all topics related to running 3,100 miles across the country. Planning, logistics, nutrition, financials, routing, medical considerations, publicity, teamwork, and, of course, the unfathomable mental and physical challenges of a trans-America run were all fair game. And, of course, stories— funny stories, scary stories, insightful stories.

It was getting on toward 1:00 p.m., time for lunch for us mere mortals, and we needed to get a start on our 300-mile drive back to Cincinnati. (Yes, it was 50 miles shorter than the drive

Steve Shepard photo

▲ Marshall runs mile 2,137.

out, thanks to Marshall’s pace.) The farewell was a bit tough. Heather told us that Marshall gets sad when his running pals take off, and we felt that we wanted to contribute more to Marshall’s challenge—2,100 miles down, but 1,000 more miles to go.

In retrospect It’s now nearly two weeks later as I write this, and Marshall has conquered California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and most of Pennsylvania: just the rest of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Manhattan to go. He will finish in 52 days and set the masters record for a trans-America run. I don’t think we’ll be hearing much from the Ulrichs for a while. Extended downtime awaits, and then Marshall has promised Heather—his crew chief and soul mate—the vacation of her choosing. Carry on, Marshall and Heather—you are an incredible inspiration to us all!