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What Could Turn a Former Football Player Into a Sub-3:00 Marathoner? How About a Burger King Chicken Sandwich—With Fries.

saiah Douglas lives for running. He has competed in 20 marathons, including

10 Bostons, and hundreds of shorter events. Six days a week, usually during the evening hours, he runs around a small man-made lake in Savannah, Georgia, with a tireless gait and ready smile.

Eighteen years ago, Douglas had little to smile about. Without a job, he didn’t have money to buy food. Running was the furthest thing from his mind, something he had a natural talent for but had grown to hate through the wind sprints he had done as a member of his high school football team. In the half-dozen or so years since he had graduated from high school, Douglas hadn’t done any running, and he didn’t rue the loss one bit.

Out of those difficult times running emerged as Douglas’s unlikely savior, his meal ticket, both literally and figuratively.

Douglas, 44, is a native of Tallahassee, Florida. He is married and has one daughter, age 15. His occupation is heavy equipment operator. In his spare time, Douglas moves a different type of heavy equipment. At 6-foot-2, 195 pounds, he is a giant in the marathon world, where men nearly a foot shorter and nearly 100 pounds lighter dominate the sport. Douglas is not an elite marathoner, but he is better than most. He has run eight sub-three-hour marathons and has a personal best of 2:46.

“T’m a little bit of a role model for the big guy,” Douglas says. “People say they don’t see how a big guy like me can run like I do. I look at smaller runners … I’m sure it would help being 15 to 20 pounds lighter. I enjoy it, though.”

Enjoyment is not a word Douglas would have used in connection with running during his early years. He played soccer, softball, and football while growing up, recalling that he did well in all of them. By the time he got to high school, Douglas concentrated solely on football, encouraged by other athletes to focus on just one sport. “There was something about football,” says Douglas, who was a tight end and describs himself as a pretty good player. “It was my love.”

GOOD SPEED DOESN’T MEAN YOU LIKE TO RUN

Douglas displayed good speed on the gridiron, and that caught the attention of the track coaches during Douglas’s freshman year when, without any training, he ran a 4:49 mile in physical education class. Proving it was no fluke, he ran a 4:51 a short time later. When the coaches begged him to come out for track, Douglas ran in the opposite direction.

“T hated running,” Douglas recalls. “Doing wind sprints in football turned me against running. If you had told me at that time I would be running marathons one day, I would have thought you were crazy.”

Douglas graduated from high school and moved to Savannah to attend Savannah State University. When college didn’t work out, he went into retail sales. Douglas was working for Wal-Mart in 1986 when he was laid off. Living with his younger brother, Willie, Douglas relied on him for financial help while he remained unemployed.

One day, however, Willie came home with a friend and commented, “You haven’t got a job yet!” When Douglas asked him for $20 to get something to eat, his brother said he would give him $10 if he could run four miles. The friend said he would match that amount.

Willie Douglas, 40, recalls that he and his friend were sitting on the porch drinking some beer when his brother asked for some meal money. He said there

laiah Douglas

A Caption to come.

was some food in the house that Isaiah could have eaten, but he had a hankering for Burger King. Willie suggested the run as a joke, recalling that Isaiah had enjoyed running on the treadmill at the gym one time. “He wouldn’t get off it,” Willie says.

Nevertheless, Willie doubted that his brother could run four miles after years of inactivity and with no training. Isaiah was hardly more confident. He hadn’t eaten a full meal in two days and hadn’t run since high school.

“T said, ‘Man, I can’t run no four miles,’” Douglas says. When he considered his hunger, Douglas had second thoughts. Weak from not eating, out of shape from lack of exercise, and forced to do something he hated, Douglas headed to downtown Forsyth Park for a run that would change his life.

When he arrived at the park, Douglas looked for ways to cut the course. There would be no shortcuts, however. Douglas says his brother knew he might try not to run the full distance and stationed his friend at the other end of the one-milesquare park.

Douglas started out at a slow pace and discovered that it wasn’t as difficult as he had thought. He continued to circle the park, and over the final mile, he picked up the pace. “I wanted to show him [his brother],” Douglas says. “I could have gone another two to three miles. I forgot I was hungry.”

Douglas’s memory returned long enough to enjoy a postrun meal of a chicken sandwich and large order of french fries at Burger King. He had surprised himself as well as his brother. “He sure fooled me,” Willie says. “I didn’t think he could do it. He was determined.”

IF FOUR IS GOOD, FOUR MORE IS BETTER

The next day, Douglas, on his own volition, again ran four miles. That began a daily routine that led him to his first race the next month, an 8K, which he completed in 28 minutes.

It’s as though Douglas’s inner runner had been waiting all those years to come out, bursting forth with unbridled energy. Once released, it stretched its legs like a young colt and headed off for the new horizon at a full gallop.

Following his inaugural race, Douglas ran a 5K in 17:40, finishing in the top 10. “I went out too hard,” he says.

Later in the year, Douglas held back on the reins and won a 5K in 17:18. After the race, a fellow participant told him he could get his times down to the 15s if he started doing speed work. Douglas heeded the advice and incorporated twice-weekly speed sessions into his workouts. The payoff was faster times and consistent one-two finishes in local 5K and 10K races.

Like many novice runners, Douglas eyed the challenge of racing greater distances. He said he thought of doing a half-marathon. The final push came from

comments he heard from some people following a local race he had won. “They said maybe I was just a 5K or 10K runner,” Douglas says.

Determined to prove them wrong, Douglas ran his first half-marathon in January 1987. He finished in 1:20. “That was a pretty good time,” Douglas says. “I didn’t know what to expect. I had just started speed work.”

Despite his excellent half-marathon time, Douglas went back to the shorter races. He said he felt more comfortable running the shorter distances. Furthermore, half-marathons were harder to find, and Douglas felt he couldn’t win a race at that distance.

Douglas continued to excel in the local, shorter races. During the next several years, he recorded personal bests of 4:30 in the mile and 15:48 in the 5K. Eventually, he went back to the half-marathon, running a 1:14. There was no turning back now. Like countless others before him, Douglas was ready to take the next step up in the natural progression of the runner, the ultimate test—the marathon.

In high school, Douglas recalled, he had watched the Boston Marathon on television. He saw runners struggling up Heartbreak Hill and wondered why anyone would do that. Douglas was about to find out.

Douglas set his sights on the 1991 Savannah Marathon, which featured a flat out-and-back course that meandered through the streets of downtown Savannah and the outlying areas. His training consisted of long runs up to 20 miles and speed work.

Douglas ran the first 20 miles in under two hours and was confident he could break three hours. He doubted the stories he heard of runners hitting The Wall during the latter stages of the marathon. “I thought they didn’t know what they were talking about,” Douglas says.

He soon discovered otherwise.

WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY ABOUT A WALL?

Around the 21-mile mark, Douglas suddenly encountered The Wall, whose very existence he had questioned just moments before. His confident stride was reduced to a shuffle and walk as his body and mind united in rebellion.

Recalls Douglas, “Everything just left me. I had no energy, no will. Mentally, I felt I could go no farther.”

Douglas forced himself to walk and run. He received a welcome energy boost from something he detested—pineapple. Someone offered him a piece of the fruit along the course. “I never thought pineapple could taste so good,” Douglas says.

Douglas finally crossed the finish line, more disappointed than sore and feeling really drained. He had acquired a taste for pineapple and an aversion to running marathons. Douglas vowed never to run that distance again.

His resolve wavered, and three weeks later he decided he might do another marathon. Douglas gained further confidence in his quest for marathon redemption when he ran a half-marathon in 1:15 roughly three months after his marathon.

Once again, Douglas eyed the Savannah Marathon. Upon the advice of a friend, he altered his training, doing four 10-milers at a fast clip, eight to 10 long runs, and climaxing with a 23-miler and speed work. Never too far away was the memory of his first marathon, which Douglas turned into a positive.

“My failure gave me the incentive to improve,” Douglas explains.

And improve he did, completing the race in 2:52. Douglas says he was determined to go out slower. He kept up a steady pace throughout the race and never hit The Wall.

“T felt great,” Douglas says. “I broke three hours and qualified for Boston.”

The Boston Marathon was about to join pineapple on Douglas’s secondchance list.

Maintaining the same training, Douglas prepared for the 1993 Boston Marathon. Noting that he didn’t do much hill training, Douglas says he didn’t know what to expect.

He zoomed through the first half in 1:19. He paid for that fast start by hitting The Wall at 15. “I was more physically drained,” Douglas says. The last 11 miles mirrored the final miles of the 1992 Savannah Marathon for Douglas, who ran

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