Richard Carling's feet have a few miles on them — more than 80,000 in fact. Wednesday he added 26 more as the former Utah state senator and community leader crossed the finish line of his 100th career marathon with his friends alongside and his wife waiting with balloons.
The former Utah state senator ran his first marathon in 1978 when he entered the Golden Spike Marathon from Promontory Point to Brigham City at age 40.
Since then, the attorney's marathon race history has been nearly as impressive as his biography of service in Utah:
- He's run the Honolulu Marathon 22 times.
Twenty-four Deseret News Marathons.
Twenty-four St. George Marathons.
Twenty-four Boston Marathons in a row. "There aren't too many who have done that," Carling says.
In the early 1990s, he was invited to run in a San Francisco Marathon that started with a run across the Golden Gate Bridge into the Presidio, then traversed the span of hills in the City by the Bay three times before the end. That race was really rough, Carling says. But not rough enough to keep him out of the Deseret News Marathon six days later.
Carling loves to run. He's an inspiration to his colleague runners and a staple on the streets and trails around downtown Salt Lake City.
"I've thought about quitting several times but I don't when I think of Richard and all he's done," said Dave Mecham, one of Carling's running pals and no slouch in the distance-running community himself.
Mecham, with 31 marathons under his own belt, is one of several friends who ran the distance of Wednesday's race with him. Carling's wife, Diane, designed a snappy T-shirt design to mark the 100th marathon occasion and another friend, Bill Francis, ordered a few dozen racing singlets with the emblem for fans, family and friends to wear Wednesday.
The University of Utah grad has been at it since 1977, when nausea and pain in his chest, arm and stomach caused his fellow elected senators to help him off the Utah State Senate floor and call a doctor. He wasn't having a heart attack, Carling was told. "The doctor said, "No, it's not a heart attack but it's stress and you have to do something," Carling recalls.
He did.
He and then Democratic Mayor Ted Wilson started a fun challenge that has lasted through the years. Carling started running at the old Deseret Gym, then moved outside when the building's cooling system broke down. He and Wilson, long-time friends and running buddies, entered the 7-mile Mt. Ensign Challenge after a bit of training and Carling was pleased with a decent performance.
"That's when I got hooked on running."
Since then, it's been four marathons a year on average. One year he ran three and another year he ran five. His best time is 2:33. And he remembers much from each outing.
He remembers one of his first two Deseret News marathons, where officials held the start of the early morning race, he says, to get the perfect early-morning sunrise picture of all the runners starting off. "Whew, that was a warm one."
He can describe in detail what it feels like to come out of the cool canyon about mile 18 of the marathon he ran Wednesday. "That's when it gets you. By the zoo. The warm air hits you and it's like running into an oven," he says.
But he's never started a marathon he didn't finish.
His running fever has been much like his commitment to the community. He was elected to the Utah State Legislature in 1067 and served until 1990. He is on the Primary Children's Medical Center Board of Trustees and was vice-chairman of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee Ethics Committee. In the past he has headed the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, the Utah State Bar Collection Practices and the Utah Traffic Law Enforcement task forces. He is involved with the American Heart Association, the University of Utah Alumni Association and the Boy Scouts of America.
Richard Carling shows no signs of stopping.
He's had a few injuries through the years: blisters, of course; a pulled hamstring once and cuts and bruises from a tangle with another runner during a Honolulu Marathon way back when.
His feet are holding up, although they've been through some wear and tear and a hereditary condition of bunions, hammer toes and a collapsed metatarsal on one foot have his tootsies looking tied up in knots. His podiatrist says there's nothing they can really do. Procedures and surgeries might help, and they might not.
No reason to take that chance, Carling says.
On Thursday, he might rest, but he might just get a head start on his training for October's St. George Marathon too. "That's not an easy race," Carling notes. "There's a real hill from miles 7 to 12 . . . and then that down hill just pounds you to pieces."
E-MAIL: lucy@desnews.com