`Marathon Man' finishes journey to all 50 states
You could describe David Bergeron as Long Beach's “Marathon Man.”
In fact, you could call him the city's All-American Marathon Man — literally.
Bergeron — at 68 years old, when many people have retired or are thinking of playing golf — recently ran a marathon in Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, completing the 26.2-mile race in 4 hours, 46 minutes and 25 seconds. Not a bad time, but finishing the race last month meant more to Bergeron than just running in a single marathon.
It meant the end of a 39year odyssey,
When he crossed the finish line, he also accomplished the staggering feat of completing a marathon in all 50 states. That's a total of 1,310 miles. That astounding feat has been accomplished by less than 1% of the 500,000 or so runners who finish a marathon each year, according to strengthrunning.com.
“Thank God it's all over,” Bergeron said as he crossed the finish line in Hawaii.
He was exhausted but ecstatic that he had achieved what seemed to be an impossible goal when he started with his first race, the Long Beach Marathon, on Feb. 2, 1984.
His home, on the eastside of Long Beach, is like a museum filled with reminders of his accomplishments — medals, race bibs, posters, trophies and certificates. He also has the “50 State Finisher” medallion, which he received when he completed the Hawaii race on Jan. 15, displayed proudly. And he still has some of the size 11 shoes he ran in over the years.
He stands 5 feet,
11 inches tall on a trim 165-pound body.
Since he started his mission, Bergeron has been an inspiration to many.
He began running as part of an exercise program to treat drug problems he had in the 1970s. He has been sober since 1979.
“The more I ran, the better I felt,” Bergeron said. “I started out with onemile jogs and kept increasing the length and time of my runs. I fell in love with running. Along with drugs, I quit smoking, too.”
Bergeron's path to running marathons was a curvy one.
He was born on Christmas Day in 1954, in
Los Angeles, along with his twin brother, Danny. David and Danny were the second set of twins born to their parents, Clebert and Lena Bergeron.
“My parents wanted to have a girl, but they gave up on that idea when they had seven boys, including two sets of twins,” David Bergeron said. “Danny and I were Numbers 6 and 7.”
The other set of twins were born on Thanksgiving Day in 1941 in Louisiana. The family's patriarch was a welder, house painter and longshore worker. He moved his family to Lakewood in 1957. David and Danny Bergeron attended Cleveland Elementary, DeMille Junior High (now McBride High School) and Lakewood High, graduating in 1973.
David Bergeron joined the Army, spent three years in Germany and then returned to Lakewood, where he did odd jobs and developed a drug addiction.
He got help with that addiction at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center and started running. He got work selling fireplaces in Santa Monica and drilling for oil on the Long Beach offshore oil islands, among other odd jobs.
He kept racing during this time, running longer distances with faster times. He finally decided it was time to try a marathon so he entered the Long Beach Marathon in 1984 — finishing with a time of 3 hours, 35 minutes and 2 seconds.
That gave him the confidence to run in more marathons in California, New York, Illinois, Louisiana, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Oregon — and two in Canada.
But it wasn't until the Florida Marathon, in Clearwater, in 2002 that Bergeron got the idea to run marathons in all 50 states.
“I read in a magazine of a guy who had done that,” he said. “For me to try it, I thought it was a fantasy, a pipe dream that would never happen. But I had run marathons in some states so I thought, `Why not give it a try?'”
He was 48 at the time. By then, he was married to his second wife, Judy, an insurance auditor, who gave him great support and encouragement.
Bergeron has had many memorable moments as he ran in marathons all over the country, he said.
“One of my most unforgettable races was in a small town in Iowa with the name, can you believe it, of Marathon,” Bergeron said. “It was hotter than heck and we ran most of the time through cornfields like in the movie, `Field of Dreams.'
“Near the end of the race, as I was entering the town, sweating and tired, I saw an old man in a rocking chair on his front porch,” he added. “We had eye contact. He smiled at me and said, `Welcome to Marathon.' It was a memorable moment I'll never forget. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.”
Another unforgettable race was the one scheduled for 2003 in Washington, D.C. It was canceled because race officials cited an increased risk of terrorism caused by the war in Iraq.
Many runners were furious at the abrupt cancellation.
“But 400 to 500 of us still ran in the marathon anyway,” Bergeron said.
Another emotional moment came in the Oklahoma Marathon, in Oklahoma City, in 2016. It was called “A Race to Remember” because it memorialized the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. holds the bookends of his 39-year odyssey to run a marathon in all 50 U.S. states. His first was the 1984 Long Beach Marathon. His last was this year in Lahaina, on Maui island in Hawaii.
“I met a woman whose father had died in the bombing,” Bergeron said. “I wore a photo of her dad in that race. When I finished, she handed me my medal.”
Bergeron also remembered the Allentown, Pennsylvania, marathon in 2016 — for a scary moment.
“I was around Mile 10. It was hot, with high humidity,” he said. “A runner came by and said I had taken a bad fall. I was bleeding and my sunglasses had cut my eye. I didn't know whether I tripped or what, but I finished the race all right.”
The coldest marathon he ran was in, of all places, Alabama in February 2004.
“It was 24 degrees there,” Bergeron said. “I had two pairs of gloves.”
He said one of the prettiest marathons was in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2015, with the race going through mountains and forests.
But his favorite race, Bergeron said, was the 1989 Boston Marathon.
“All of the races were different and great, but Boston was my favorite because you had to qualify in another race to even get in it,” he said. “And Boston is where I had one of my best times: 2 hours, 49 minutes and 55 seconds.”
I asked Bergeron if his running days were over now that he had achieved this nearly impossible goal of running marathons in 50 states.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I'm still running every other day in El Dorado Park and other parks.”
What about another marathon?
“Oh, I don't know about that,” Bergeron said with a grin. “You never know. Let me enjoy this for a while.”