Running a single mile in your 60s may seem unfathomable, but one Lexington resident beats all odds. At 66, Jerry Rich completed yet another 24-hour race. He was disappointed with the outcome of the Nov. 10 race. He said he ran “only” 56 miles. His running record is 100 miles straight. Rich has run a marathon in every state and one in Washington, DC. “I’m a fifty stater,” he said. Of his mantle full of running trophies, he said he’s most proud of the one dedicated to that accomplishment. While he says he’s not an “elite runner,” he is competitive. On 4 occasions, he has run 2 marathons in a single weekend. They were in adjoining states, so it reduced travel costs, he said. It took him just 10 years to run all 51 races. He continues to compete in the Run Hard Columbia Marathon every March. The hills are killer, he said. It’s always his worst marathon time. Every year after completing it, Rich said he tells himself he’ll never do it again. He has already signed up for the 2019 competition. Once Rich completed his 50 state marathon goal, his friends encouraged him to do more. “People would ask me, ‘what are you going to do next?’” Rich said. He told them he’d run a 50-mile race. That’s when he learned about 24-hour races. Now he’s a regular. For 24 hours straight, competitors move. Their miles are tracked. Rich has spanned over 80 miles in that time. He admitted not all of the miles were run. In that length of race, some are jogged and others are walked. Sometimes crawling is even necessary, he said. Rich has been competing in the Rockingham, NC 24-Hour Ultra Classic race at Hinson Lake for 8 years. He has run in the Florida 24-hour race for the last few years, too. That one is a 2-mile loop around a lake. Rich says the monotony doesn’t bother him. He said he recalls running 140 laps around an indoor track years ago when it was too cold outdoors. Rich has even completed a 100-mile race. When he first heard about the race, he laughed. “It’s crazy,” he said. He didn’t think he could do it, but he finished in less than 30 hours. His adventures in running all started with a single comment. Rich was told he would get a “beer gut” and fall apart at 40. He decided he wouldn’t. He ran his first marathon in 1998. Health benefits are just one of the reasons Rich runs. It’s a habit. “It’s just normal,” Rich said. “It’s what we do; it’s what people do.” Every Saturday morning, he gets up at 6:20 am to run with friends. 7 miles is their minimum, he said. “If I’m too sick to go run, I’m in very bad shape.” His running group hopes to continue working out together even in their 80s, “as long as my body holds up,” he said. The group normally runs between 20 and 40 miles together every week. When Rich hits a wall – he defines it as putting in the same amount of effort with reduced results – he said he just puts one foot in front of the other until then end. He keeps moving forward and finds someone his pace to chat with. Running is just something Rich does on the side. By day, he’s a teacher in Lexington School District 1. He creates curriculum for gifted and talented 3rd grade students. Currently, they’re working on a “LEGO” unit. The top 10% of the class from 3 schools get to build, program, code and present their masterpieces. Rich went back to school at the University of South Carolina for his Masters in teaching more than a decade ago. He was an electrical engineer for Eastman Chemical Company before that. For 30 years, that was his career. Changes to the company led him to take early retirement. He switched fields. Students are “so much more enjoyable” to work with than engineers, he said. That helped him decide to become a teacher. He’s never taken a sick day since starting his second career 13 years ago. “Between running and 3rd graders, I’m staying a lot younger than I would be otherwise,” Rich said.