Beyond Boston: Dean Gartland

I've known Dean virtually for about 10 years.  He is a very talented runner -- he ran his first sub-3:00 ten days before his 57th birthday and is working on running 25 consecutive Bostons!  He is also a really caring runner who has made amazing wooden projects for most of the Loopsters over the years (I have some amazing Christmas ornaments from him that I'll add a picture of after Thanksgiving when I next dig that box out!).  His enthusiasm for the sport and for Boston shine through in his interview, and I have a feeling he will accomplish his goal of placing in the top 3 in his age group at Boston soon!

Introduce yourself (who you are, where you're from, what you do, etc.).

Hey, I'm Dean Gartland from Louisville, KY.  I am a woodworker by trade and it's something that I love. Woodworking is also a hobby of mine next to running. I am the second oldest of ten kids. I was always running growing up either from my only older brother or chasing after one of my younger brothers.

How did you get started in running? Tell us a little about your early running career through present.

I started running in 1987 after talking to a guy who worked for me about our local half marathon at Derby time. He encouraged me to run a local 5K in a couple of weeks so I started running to be able to do that. Next was a 10K then a 15K followed by the half marathon. The only goal I had was to finish it in under two hours. Met that goal by a couple of minutes. 

I was hooked and wanted to run even more then. The longer the race the better but the only race I could find after that were 5Ks. I didn't have a clue how to train so I would just go out and run as hard as I could every day. My knee would sometimes hurt so bad after an hour of running I thought it would just explode but I kept on running. I would get home and could barely get out of the car and would hobble and hop to the house. This type of training went on until 1993 when I decided to give up running. I had lost interest, I hadn't met any new friends through running, and my wife and I had split up.

Why did you decide to run your first marathon?  What was your journey to BQ like? 

In 2007 my oldest daughter called me and told me how much she loved me taking her to races so that she could watch me finish and even got to run in some of the kid dashes. She told me that it would be great if we could both run that local half marathon the last Saturday in April. I agreed. At 5'5" and almost 190 lbs I was in no shape to run. I stopped at my favorite park after work and couldn't complete 1/8 of a mile. Boy was that an eye opener. My daughter had not only gotten me to run it but three of my brothers, a sister, and my sister-in-law. I ended up running that half marathon and loving it just as much as my first. At our little after party I announced that the following year I would be 50 years old and would run the full marathon in 2008. My daughter's mouth just dropped as she asked me if I was sure that I could do that. With a huge smile I told her I could.

So in January I decided that I need to get some help with this training stuff that I really knew nothing about. I found the local Fleet Feet running store where they had running groups meet on Wednesdays for a run and Saturdays for long runs. I showed up with my walkman on my hip and head phones around my neck. The owner pointed me to this group of older men to run with. I thought "Good a group that I'll be able to impress" When I asked them what they were going to run that Wednesday I was told that they were going to do hill repeats. Wasn't real sure what that was but asked if I could run along. After a mile warm up they explained that we would slowly run down this hill and at the bottom do a "U" turn and sprint back up. We would do this six times. No problem I thought since my local park was nothing but hills. Fast forward to Thursday morning when I could hardly walk getting out of bed to go to work. OMG I was so sore.That was just the beginning to so many great training runs with that group.

Soon it was the last Saturday in April and I was on the starting line of my first full marathon. As I ran past mile 25 my new training partners jumped in with me to run my last mile all the time yelling at the crowd that I was just about to qualify for the Boston marathon. I had no clue. After I finished sure enough I had run my first marathon (3:33:26) and qualified to run Boston in 2009. I just had to do it! But thought that it might just be my last marathon because those things really hurt.

The following year (2009) I trained hard and got registered for Boston 2009. One of my younger brothers and his wife told me that they would take care of my room in Boston because they were going to cheer me on. I ended up running my first Boston and only my second marathon one second faster that my first one. 3:33:25. That was the most awesome experience I had ever lived through at that time next to the birth of my daughter. I was going to be going back again the following year. 

One thing I just couldn't get my head wrapped around was the fact that I had just trained over 800 miles to run a 26.2 mile race. Seemed there should be a better way to use all of that training. That fall I ran both the Chicago Marathon and Las Vegas Marathon. I kept on until I was running six marathons a year.

In 2014 I decided that I wanted to now shoot for a sub-3 hour marathon. In February I ran a 3:01 which beat my 2013 Chicago marathon time of 3:02. Right before the 2014 Chicago marathon my training was going so good and my confidence was sky high, but four weeks before the marathon my Achilles started to bother me so much that I would limp the first couple of miles of every run. I had to get this fixed. I stopped running and only got in 5 or 6 runs the last four weeks before Chicago. At the Chicago marathon expo I had a doctor do an ultrasound on my Achilles to find out if I was going to be able to race the following day. He said he could see why I was in pain but should be okay to race. I was all smiles. I crossed the finish line the next day, (10 days before my 57th birthday) with a time of 2:59:52. I hit another goal!

What are your thoughts on Boston 2020 being cancelled? How did you handle the initial postponement and eventual cancellation, mentally and physically?

It was heartbreaking to see that the Boston marathon was first postponed then canceled in 2020, but that was the only right thing to do. I had started my training for the April Boston in November. Getting my mileage up and really just getting in shape for the hard stuff that would start in December. Once I had heard that the Boston was going to be moved to September I took a few easy weeks before once again starting up my training. Then again I get this message as I was getting out of my truck to go for a training run that Boston was now canceled for 2020. I stood there for a moment deciding not to push this run but instead to use it to reflect and calm down from the bad news. Running has helped me out through so many bad times.

Why did you decide to run Boston 2020?
Boston is everything that you have ever heard of about it. I've run 37 marathons now (all of them have been Boston qualifiers) and I can say that when people cross a finish line I see a lot of people break down and cry that they have completed a marathon. Boston is the ONLY marathon that I have seen so many people break down in tears at the starting line, I love this race and now can't see a year that I don't run it.

Do you plan to run Boston 2020 virtually? Why or why not?

I now have the opportunity to run Boston Virtually and that's what I'll do. This won't be a race or even a fast 26.2 miles but it will be a way of giving thanks for the ability to be able to do something that I love. There were so many questions to be answered and I think that the BAA did an excellent job of answering all of them. They were offering a commemorative bib for the first 15,000 entrants and I had to be one. A couple of day after I registered I received an email from the BAA letting me know that I was one of the first 15,000. Another goal met. 

Do you plan to run Boston 2021? Why or why not? 
Yes, I've run 11 consecutive Boston marathons and at this rate I'll get to join the quarter century club of 25 consecutive Boston marathons at the age of 75, another goal that I'm chasing, well that and finishing in the top three in my age group in Boston!