.jpg) Photos by Charlie Leffler
Gene White truly is a marathon man Age not a factor for 74-year-old runner
This past Sunday, long time Mechanicsville resident Gene White was among the hundreds who ran and biked through the rain in the USAT Duathlon National Championships in downtown Richmond. And while most of the athletes were chasing national recognition in the 10K run, 40K bike, 5K run event, White’s motivation was simpler. White was merely using the Duathlon as a means to get in shape for his main sport; triathlons. And while that distinction alone does not set White apart, the fact that he will turn 75 in July does.
Though White now keeps up with people who are generations his younger, he never thought of himself as much of an athlete in high school; playing JV football and baseball at John Marshall for only two years before beginning a work-study program that took him away from sports.
But later, when he entered the 101st Airborne paratroopers, White discovered something about himself and his physical abilities. “We had to run everywhere we went,” he said. “Much to my surprise, I found I could run about as far as any of these other guys could.”
Yet, when his time in the service was through, White’s endurance abilities detoured from running the roads to running his career. For 40 years, White worked on the faculty at MCV School of Pharmacy, where he acted as associate dean and instructor.
Yet, twenty-seven years ago with his career well under way, White once again took up endurance athletics.
“I got a little overweight and I decided I was going to run around the block,” he said. “I didn’t make it.”
Breathless, but not beaten, White continued to work out and run a course that eventually took him much further than around the block.
After two years of training, at the age of 49, White entered the Richmond Marathon for the first time. “It liked to killed me,” He said, describing his finish as “way back in the pack.”
Though he made it through the race itself, White found his biggest challenge afterward when he went for refreshments at a parking deck in Shockoe Slip. “I went and laid down on that floor and I couldn’t get up,” he joked. “We had guests coming later that day and my wife (Nancy) was standing over me, kicking me, saying, ‘get up, get up.’ She had to go over and get some boys to pick me up.”
Over the years since, White has run 24 marathons including the Boston, New York, Hawaiian Iron-Man and the Marine Corps events.
And though age has not slowed him down, it has taken its toll on his distance running. Marathons are now a thing of the past for White, not because he no longer has the stamina, but because his recuperative powers are not what they once were. “I began finding out that running marathons, it took me a long time to heal,” he said. “I ran four marathons in one year and that’s when I discovered that that wasn’t a bright idea. I would love to do one more but I won’t because it would take me so long to recover.”
However, not wanting to give up the sport completely, White began to look for alternatives and discovered at that time, a newly developing competition called a triathlon, which involved running, biking and swimming.
“When I first started doing triathlons, we could have held a meeting of everybody in Richmond who did triathlons in a phone booth,” White said. “There probably weren’t three or four of us.”
And though he was one of the first in Richmond to compete as a triathlete, White does not like to be considered a pioneer in the sport.
“Let me tell you how I pioneered it,” he said speaking of the first triathlon he entered at Briarwood, which is now ACAC. “I started off, I knew I was going to have to run so I had my running outfit on. I did my 10-mile run and I knew I as going to have to ride the bike so my wife gave me the bag I had my biking stuff in, I ran into the locker room, put on my biking pants, my shirt, got my helmet, went out.”
After returning from the ride, White went through the same routine to change for his swim. But afterward his wife Nancy had disparaging news for him. “When I came back she said, ‘Oh boy, you don’t stand a chance,’” White laughed. “She said about the first four guys that came across the finish line, stopped right there in front of God and everybody and stripped and put on their bathing suit.
“I was the pioneer of how not to do that thing, thinking you really had to be modest and change in the locker room,” White said.
Though White sets his sights on triathlons, he does not rule out other competitions. White has competed in two XTerra events and admits competing on the long course the first time may have been a mistake. “Another good friend of mine and I decided we know how to ride a bicycle, we ought to be able to do this,” White said. “Neither one of us had any idea how to ride a mountain bike.”
Though White won his age group, he admits the victory was somewhat deceptive. “There were only two other people on the course and one of them quit,” he said. “I went back the next year and did the short course, which was much more to my liking.”
In fact, White likes to one-up his younger competitors. “When I compete now, it’s fun to see where I fit in as I go down the age levels below me.”
Earlier this year, in a March rain at the 5k-run, 23-mile bike, 5k-run Chippokes Duathlon in Suffix, White won his age group with a time of 2:26.15 beating the best time from the 65-69 age group. “I would have been fourth in the 60-64 group,” he said.
In April it was raining again at the 3-mile run, 18-mile bike, 3-mile run West Creek Duathlon, but White once again won his class with a time of 1:55.25, which would have put him in the top ten in virtually every other age group.
As far as his future running plans, White dose not foresee a time when he will stop. “If you read in the paper Gene White died going up hill, facing the wind, you know I died happy,” he said.
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