San Diegans cover 2,021 miles in 2021 in challenge
Sean Curry would make Forrest Gump proud. Curry ran 2,021 miles in 2021 for no particular reason.
It wasn’t a New Year’s resolution, just something he wanted to do, especially after the pandemic halted sports activities. It was a way to get outside, exercise, clear his head and think.
He ran while in Key West, Fla., to renew his wedding vows with his wife, Joice.
He ran in Maui while there to scatter the ashes of his sister-in-law.
He ran up and down the formidable Torrey Pines grade more than 30 times.
And he ran through four pairs of running shoes.
He ran 326 hours and 14 seconds, the equivalent of nearly 40 hours a week.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, Curry was determined to hoof it for an average of 5.54 miles a day until Dec. 31. In fact, he planned to finish before the deadline so he could relax over the holidays. And he did.
On Dec. 3, Curry completed mission impossible. He ran into his Carmel Valley yard, festooned with a banner and balloons, where he was triumphantly greeted by relatives and neighbors. “I finished at 10 a.m. and partied all weekend,” he says. His average pace was a 9.39-minute mile.
Curry considers himself an average guy. He has never run a marathon, although he has entered half-marathons, and he ran cross-country in high school.
He kept track of every statistic. The mileage he covered was the equivalent of running from his home to Nashville or Winnipeg.
He burned about 310,000 calories, the equivalent of 3,049 Big Macs. At one point, he lost 33 pounds, which he wasn’t trying to do.
Curry was one of at least 315 U.S. participants, including 64 San Diego County residents, who took part in Run Life’s Virtual Run Series 2021 challenge.
Entrants signed up online, and each day they entered their distance and time on Run Life’s online
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chart. Progress was on the honor system. Virtual trophies were awarded at benchmarks along the way and an impressive medal marked completion.
There were various categories. Curry signed up for the solo run/walk challenge. He chose to run the entire distance outside — no walking and no treadmill jogging. He ran solo, but he wasn’t alone in his 2,021mile goal this year.
Laura Zahnof Carlsbad was the second person to finish the 2021 challenge — finishing her 2,021 miles with an 18-mile walk on June 3.
“My goal was to do it in 180 days, but it took a little longer than that,” she says. She made a lot of her mileage on a treadmill.
Zahn, an editor for a scientific journal, has run marathons before but prefers shorter distances and enjoys walking. She committed to the challenge on a whim because gyms were closed.
She said her husband called her “nuts.”
Scott and Aracely Beardsley of Escondido accepted the 2021 challenge together, and finished on Nov. 13 with a marathon in Big Bear. They motivated each other, but they didn’t always run together.
Aracely, who works full time as a maintenance mechanic for the U.S. Postal Service and is an Air Force reservist, often arose at 2 a.m. to work out for 6 miles on her treadmill. After work, she sometimes jogged for another 4 miles.
“It was a New Year’s resolution, but only because
everything else was canceled,” Scott says. They usually register for marathons and half-marathons, but those events were canceled or postponed.
“It’s not something we would normally do, but we needed something to motivate us and keep us on track and in shape. Every day we’d get up and had to get in miles,” Scott says. “It was the hardest thing we’ve ever attempted, and we’re more proud of this than anything we’ve ever done.”
Joan Haab, 52, of Encinitas was 97.9 percent complete,
with only 41.5 miles to go, when I spoke with her Thursday. She is planning on finishing well before the Dec. 30 deadline.
She says she typically runs 1,500 miles a year, so she thought committing to the challenge wouldn’t be too difficult.
But the pressure to hit the mileage mark each day has been consistent — “quite the monkey sitting on my shoulder,” says the biotech operations executive. “I thought it was going to be easier than it was.”
On a positive note, she says on her rounds, that began at 5 a.m., she met many neighborhood folks who regularly jogged or walked their dogs in the early morning.
As for repeating the challenge in 2022, Haab says she’ll return, instead, to community races.
The Beardsleys agree. “It is something we’d never do again,” Scott says.
He isn’t shy about taking on challenges, however. He has entered the Snowdrop Ultra race taking place in Houston this New Year’s weekend — a 55-hour run.