Deployed but not deterred, marathoner runs overseas route

Sam Arwood is 47 years old and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Air Force. He completed his first organized running race of any kind Sunday, but don't worry. This isn't a typical "man rises from couch, starts running" tale. Not at all.

Something about participating in the final Gasparilla Distance Classic Marathon intrigued him, so months ago he started training with his wife, Amy, and made plans to be on Bayshore Boulevard to join thousands of fellow runners for the 26.2-mile journey.

That's when fate intervened. He was deployed to Afghanistan in January from MacDill Air Force Base.

What to do? When you're motivated enough, even the 7,800-mile distance between his current location and the place where every other runner gathered to race isn't an obstacle. And Sam Arwood is highly motivated.

He first contacted the Gasparilla office and asked about running the equivalent marathon distance in Afghanistan while the full race was going on here. No problem, he was told. Officials sent him a goody bag, complete with a T-shirt, race bib and finishing medal.

Using GPS, he laid out a course around the inside of what officials call his "deployed location" and arranged for a couple of Marines to verify that he ran the race. He was set.

Unfortunately, recent rains there turned the course into muddy goo. There's no way anyone could run a marathon through that.

So Sam Arwood, complete with the Marine eyewitnesses, took his race inside.

For 6 hours, 6 minutes and 45 seconds, he ran on a treadmill.

"It was the most monotonous, most nonmotivational thing I have ever done," he said in an e-mail conversation we had on his adventure.

But he finished his race and earned his medal.

It's probably fitting that this was the last Gasparilla Marathon because this story will be hard to top.

Back in Tampa, Amy - also an Air Force lieutenant colonel with SOCOM, stationed at MacDill - joined 20 or so members of the Galloway Running Group from Temple Terrace. Some ran the full marathon, some ran the half. All of them had Sam in their hearts and thoughts.

As part of their races, each designated a particular mile as a tribute to their friend half a world away. You have Charlene Brazzeal to thank for that. She's known in the group as "The Sparkplug" and she wasn't about to let Sam run alone.

"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision," she said.

Sam hadn't been much of a runner, beyond what was required for his military training. Amy is much more serious about it, having competed in many races - including a marathon. But Amy said Sam got involved only because "I dragged his butt there."

Sam: "I should have started running with her earlier but I chickened out before now."

He found he actually liked it. Their group is named for running guru Jeff Galloway, who champions the "run a little, walk a little" way of competing in long-distance races. So without so much as a 5k race on his resume, Sam decided to give the marathon a shot.

The original plan was to compete simultaneously with the race here but mission requirements forced him to move up the start time by a couple of hours, even as conditions forced him indoors.

There was light outside but it gave way to darkness by the time he finished. People drifted into the gym to use other treadmills and work out while Sam was making his run.

"They came and went," he said. "I was still here."

The treadmill created challenges most marathon runners don't have to consider.

"The treadmills here cut out at an hour and go into cool-down mode for the runner. Basically, they start slowing down so you can cool down slowly," he said. "Each time I got to one of the auto-cool-down points, I had to hit the emergency stop button - then rapidly hit the quick-start button and push the speed back up to my speed setting.

"Now, just before I hit the emergency stop button I would write down my distance and time. Each time I had to stop like this I wrote down the new time and distance and kept a running total so I would know my cumulative total time and distance."

Sure, it's not a conventional marathon. Who cares?

This is what Gasparilla races are. There were more than 20,000 finishers in the weekend's various events and each one can talk about accomplishing something that once seemed out of reach, pushing past pain or just reaching a personal goal.

Lt. Col. Sam Arwood did all of the above - the hard way.

"I can't see myself doing that on a treadmill ever again," he said.

He did it once, though.

The tale of how he competed in a marathon 7,800 miles away by running on a treadmill in a war zone will live a lot longer.