NC Marathon People #1: Slade Lewis

Slade Lewis was an occasional runner, doing a few miles here and there, when he worked on the sidelines last year at the first NC Marathon. He'd been helping to organize the event for six months as a member of the race committee, but he'd never considered running a marathon himself.   "I didn't see myself as marathon material," says Lewis, a Greensboro resident.

   That notion changed as he watched the runners go by. All kinds of people run 26.2 m

iles, he realized, not just lightweight, super-fit people. I could do this, he thought.

   Lewis and two close friends -- Frieda Menzer and her husband, Rob MacArthur -- agreed to train for the Marine Corps marathon in Washington, DC, in October. They ra

n long runs together on the weekends and did their own runs during the week. "I ran on the treadmill, ran Hamilton Lakes, the greenway, places around Greensboro I'd never seen before," Lewis says. 

   The marathon itself? "We stayed in Pentagon City and made a weekend out of it," he says. "I was surprised how emotional it all was, running through the capital, and lots of people were running in memory of someone [who'd been killed 

in the war]."

   Lewis, 42, finished in 4:45:02, slower than his goal of 4:30 but emotionally, mentally, and physically satisfying.

   "I like knowing you can train your body to do something like that without blowing an artery or something. The whole race I kept waiting for something to blow."

   MacArthur, Menzer and Lewis (in photo, from left to right, at the Iwo Jima Memorial) plan to repeat the Marine Corps again this fall.  That's after Lewis helps pull off the second annual NC Marathon. As chair of promotions and marketing for the event, he's done everything from gather corporate sponsors to order t-shirts and medals and place advertising. That work, on top of his full-time job as a health insurance consultant and his family, including his wife and young daughter Anna, doesn't leave a lot of time for running. But in some ways, his busy schedule makes the runs more important. 

   "My typical run now is five to seven miles, where it used to be one to three," he says. "I like the solitude, the alone time.

   "Running is definitely part of my exercise regime now. I can't say that I love it, but I can find enjoyment. And it's opened up my eyes to a new culture."