I completed my first marathon in 2008. I was in my mid-30's and had always dreamed of running one. I drove six hours to Orlando, slept in the Epcot parking lot, ran the race, and drove home all within 24 hours. Could I afford a hotel room? Yes. But why not sleep on my air mattress at the race site? I'm genius.  

Now I am not a typical runner. I weigh around 230 pounds, and I'm classified as a Clydesdale which, as you know is any runner weighing more than 180 pounds. I would now like to coin the phrase, "Super Clydesdale" for any runner more than 220 pounds. I may weigh more than the majority of marathoners...but I finish. I've logged more than 16 marathons, two 50K's, and one 50 miler. No DNF's.

My identical twin brother, Todd, and I run most of these adventures together. He lives a few hours away, so it's a good time to get our families together. I've got four children, and he's got triplets. We usually get accommodations with an indoor pool so they can play. (I apologize in advance if your hotel room is next to our crew).

In 2010, we thought of how we could run the Rock 'n' Roll Series Country Music Nashville Marathon in a unique way since a PR was completely out of the question. We wanted to run in an outfit that would give participants and spectators a smile, so I Google-imaged "marathon costumes." It appears The London Marathon wins the prize. It has the most creative, kooky things imaginable. How could these people complete this distance wearing this stuff? I'm surprised some aren't banned because of how big and obtrusive they are. Some are scantily clad, and some are just plain hilarious.

My brother and I are former pharmaceutical reps and had plenty of business suits that were worn out and needed to be retired. For cost's sake, that's what we settled on. We purposefully pinned our bibs over the buttoned coat so as not to take it off if things got tough. Folks were incredulous at our attempt to run a full marathon in a business suit, but cheered us on nonetheless. Most marathons have more half marathoners than full. The half marathon bib is one color and the full is another, and most folks thought we were just doing the half. We could hear runners behind us talking about how cool it was to do the half dressed up. It was awesome to turn around and let them see the full marathon colored bib. We had either instant respect, or they thought we were crazy. One guy said, "I don't know what your cause is...but I'm supporting it!" We had no particular cause that year; we just did it for fun. The marathon was disappointing because race organizers were forced to cancel it due to a horrendous thunderstorm at about 4.5 hours in, which was at our mile 20. So what are identical twins to do in suits with six miles to go and a Garmin watch? We logged six more miles on our own in the torrential rain to officially/unofficially finish. Fortunately, race organizers granted us our finish time since we emailed them a picture of the Garmin showing 26.2 miles. It was a wet and wild time, and we entertained any pictures along the way as mostly female runners wanted to post it on Facebook. We were rock stars! Sort of.

In late 2011, my brother and I were debating a first quarter 2012 marathon. I wasn't too excited about any marathon registration costs since I had recently started a new job. To my surprise, my bro signed me up! This one was the Publix Georgia Marathon in Atlanta in March. Would this be just a routine marathon or should we get creative like Nashville? After some thought, I wondered if race organizers would let us run with grocery carts since Publix is a grocery store chain in the South. Could we even do it? I emailed organizers and a few weeks later, got a reply. Race organizers, The US Road Sports and Entertainment Group, said we could give it a go. We would be the official race ambassadors for the Marathon in conjunction with a food drive for a local food bank. Rather quickly, we had to modify shopping carts with pneumatic wheels to support the long, hilly, and sometimes-bumpy course through Atlanta. It was quite tough since the carts weighed a measly 74 pounds empty! My math isn't very good, but that's pushing more than 300 pounds. We somehow completed it in an arduous 6 hours, 45 minutes while raising more than 1500 pounds of food for Hosea Feed the Hungry and Homeless in Atlanta. The good news was that donations were made at the expo so we only had a few cans of kidney beans thrown in the buggies while we were running.

I have a few more ideas for upcoming marathons. One idea is to complete a full marathon eating a Krystal burger each mile. Some of you know it as White Castle sliders.These "sliders" go down so easy that I think 26 - one per mile - will be easy. Anybody want to volunteer to crew me? Anyone?

Another idea is to bring out my sousaphone (tuba) that I used to play in high school. My brother played the trumpet. We could get in marching band uniforms and wake up the crowd along the way. My last idea is to purchase two Star Wars Storm Trooper costumes. How would you like to see a couple of Storm Troopers, or even Darth Vader, passing you? Sounds like we may have a "part two" update for M&B subscribers.