For Arlington Man, a Marathon is Just a Warmup

The first time Dodds ever ran a mile was for a physical fitness test before he joined the U.S. Army. While in the Army, he ran three miles in formation several mornings a week. He didn't enjoy it.

Dodds, the son of an Air Force officer, lived all over the world and graduated from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania on an ROTC scholarship. He graduated from George Washington University Law School in 1976 and became an Air Force attorney in 1983. He now works in the Air Force general counsel's office. It was when he saw the photo on his new ID card that Dodds had what he calls his "epiphany." At 5 feet 8 and 162 pounds, he felt that his face looked "chunky."

"I held that ID card up to the person who took the photo and said, 'Do you think that looks like me?' and she said 'Yes,' " he said. "I just knew I had to do something about my weight."

That something soon became running. Dodd did not start small. Reading about the Air Force's upcoming first-ever marathon, "I thought, 'Wow, maybe I could start running,' " he said. "The pinnacle of running was the marathon. The guys who could do that were in great shape. I thought if I ran a marathon, I would lose weight."

Dodds called a friend in Colorado who ran marathons, and they devised a training regimen. On July 20, 1997, Dodds began his running career with a jaunt of less than two miles from his Arlington home to Yorktown High School, around the track and back home.

At left, runners make their way through Death Valley in California during the 1999 Badwater Ultramarathon. Competitors run 135 miles in temperatures that can reach 130 degrees. The road surface can reach 200 degrees.

He remembers the details because he immediately started a running log. To this day, he can tell you every time he has run, the distance and whether anyone ran with him.

Naturally athletic, Dodds soon worked up to a 15-mile run, but when he tried 20 miles he hit what runners call "the wall." "I just could not run anymore," he said. "I had no energy. It was like someone had taken control of your body."

Dodds figured out that he hadn't been drinking enough water. After making adjustments, he broke through the wall and completed his first marathon in September 1997 in 4 hours 5 minutes.

He decided to run another marathon to lower his time, and he kept competing. In April 1998 he ran his first Boston Marathon. By August 1999, his best marathon time was down to 3 hours 19 minutes. That month, he ran a marathon in Upstate New York that happened to be a trail run, through the woods and hills.

"I loved it," said Dodds, now 142 pounds with a slight build. "And after the race, I heard people talking about other kinds of races. They were talking about a 100-mile run. It was my first exposure to that."

Dodds graduated to ultrarunning by trying a 50-mile run called Mountain Masochist, near Lynchburg, Va., in October 1999. "I just wanted the whole experience," he said. "Was it grueling? Was it tough? Would I have the determination to finish it?"

Dodds finished the race in 10 hours 5 minutes, joined the Virginia Happy Trails Club a few months later and was off and running, so to speak. He ran his first 100-mile race in 2000 and has run one or more every year since.