Catch Him If You Can- August 2023
Brian Harris and his family have lived in Oakland since 1994. I met him when our children attended boy scouts together. I always knew he loved the outdoors and loved to run but I never knew how much until a good friend of mine told me about this “guy in town” that plans to run a marathon in every state! Well of course, as the town Newsletter Commissioner, that piqued my interest. I searched through my phone for Brian’s cell number and called him right away to ask if I could write an article about him. Thankfully,he agreed!
I started our conversation by asking him if he was always a runner. He explained to me that he began running cross country in middle school and then continued on in college. But after college, life got hectic, and he stopped running. In his mid-30’s, he was working in Princeton while still residing in Oakland, which meant that he was staying in a hotel for the week and then traveling home on weekends. During this time, he was consuming a lot of fast food and hotel foods. “One day, I decided to go for a run, but I didn’t get far before I had to stop,” he laughed. “That’s when I knew that I was out of shape, and I needed to do something.” A few years later, Brian and his co-workers (4 in all) decided to do the NJ Marathon together and they trained together through the winter. None of them had ever run a marathon before so it was a first for all of them. The marathon was scheduled on April 25, 2004. However, on April 22, 2004 Brian’s daughter, Samantha was born. “I remember being disappointed that I wouldn’t get to run in the marathon, but I was so excited to meet my daughter and become a dad,” Brian explained. His wife knew how hard he had trained and told him the night before the race, he should go and do the race. “I was unsure about leaving her but in the end, she talked me into doing it and with not much sleep, I ran my first marathon,” said Brian. He laughed and added, “We had heard that Oprah and P. Diddy had both run a marathon and our only goal was to beat their time!” And sure enough, Brian beat Oprah’s time by only a few seconds. He had to wait until the following year to beat P. Diddy’s time.
To date, Brian has run 29 marathons in 22 states and is proud of his being able to have run several of them in 3hours 15min, including Boston!! I asked Brian what led him to the decision of running a marathon in every state? He explained, “After running several major marathons, like the Boston Marathon multiple times I thought to myself, instead of doing the same marathons multiple times, why not run a marathon in each state and see the country while I’m doing it!”
I asked Brian to tell me about some of his favorite races and what some of his not-so-favorites were. He responded with laughter and stated, “Well, my hardest race was in Des Moines, Iowa this past March! It was 9 degrees with a wind chill of about negative 24.” I gasped while listening to Brian. Personally that is WAY too COLD for most people to even think about running in a marathon! Brian shared that some of his favorites were the Boston Marathon, the Marine Corps. Marathon, and the Chicago Marathon.
So, what’s next for Brian? He told me that he would really like to wrap up all the states to the east of the Mississippi River first. He is trying for at least 2 marathons a year. The next two marathons that he would like to run are in Savannah, Georgia and Carmel, Indiana. Along with running marathons in every state, he would also love to run a marathon in Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo and Dublin. "Wow, that's a pretty big bucket list," I said to Brian. He responded with a laugh and said, "Well I better get to training then, these Oakland hills will make you stronger!"
When I asked Brian what the best part of these races was, he smiled and said, “I get to meet new people everywhere I go and make new friends! A friend of mine, Fran Beideman, also competes with me in these marathons and we always have a great time together! I also love seeing the different architecture of the buildings. In each city we visit, Fran and I try to go to Mass. Some of the old churches are so beautiful and have so much history behind them.”
So, if any of you see Brian running through the town, make sure you wave and cheer him on!!