72 + 100 = One in a Million

by Jill Cousins

Charlie Haile thought his wife Carol was crazy when she started distance running 16 years ago at age 49. In the early years of their 34-year marriage, the Lake Mary residents were both non-athletic cigarette smokers and self-proclaimed couch potatoes. But once Carol started running, she loved it, routinely waking at 3:30 in the morning for training runs and traveling with her running buddies to various half- and full-marathons around the country.

Carol’s efforts to convince Charlie to join her were always in vain. She recalls a particular incident in 2012 when she was helping son Zachary shop for some running shoes so he could start training to run a marathon with her.

“I asked Charlie if he wanted to get some running shoes, too,” Carol says, “and he said, ‘I will never run!’ And then he said to Zachary, ‘I don’t know why she thinks everybody has to like it just because she does!’”

But one year later, as Carol was approaching her 56th birthday, Charlie – then 62 – made the mistake of asking her what she wanted for a present.

“I told her, ‘Whatever you’d like for your birthday, I’ll get it for you,’” Charlie recalls with a grin. ‘“I don’t care what it is. It could be anything!’”

So that’s when Carol told Charlie what she really wanted was for him to join her Orlando Galloway running club, which just happened to begin its annual eight-month training session on Carol’s birthday.

“Oh, crap,” was Charlie’s initial reaction. But then he realized, “I said I’d do anything, so I guess I have to      do this.”

A Runner Is Born

That’s how Charlie, now 72, became a distance runner. Even though he was still smoking at the time, he found that he liked running right away, and he’s been doing it ever since. He ran his first half-marathon four months later and the following year ran his first full-marathon at age 64.

To date, in addition to about six marathons and numerous half-marathons, Charlie has also completed nearly half-a-dozen ultramarathons (races that are longer than the traditional 26.2-mile marathon). He and Carol have traveled around the country and even overseas to run half- and full-marathons together and once started a 14-mile trail run (the Florida Skydive Ultra) by first jumping out of an airplane!

“I like the challenge of it,” Charlie says of distance running. “I knew I was never going to be real fast, although I have gotten faster. But one of the things that always intrigued me from day one was that I was interested to see how far I could go. Part of it is just... can I do this today? Can I go that far?”

A Run for the Ages

This past Labor Day weekend, Charlie achieved his greatest feat to date – running 100 miles over the span of 2-1/2 days with minimal sleep in an ultramarathon event called A Run for the Ages in Manchester, Tennessee. The race’s unique format – devised by an eccentric endurance race director known as Laz Lake – allows runners over age 40 to have the number of hours equal to their age to run as many one-mile laps as they can around the famed Deadman Mile at aptly named Fred Deadman Park. Runners age 40 and under, known as babies, are allowed to compete in the event’s final 40 hours and are given symbolic pacifiers. Runners over age 60 are given a knit cap with the word “Geezer” embroidered on it.

Charlie, therefore, had 72 hours to achieve his ultimate goal of running 100 miles. Despite a treacherous thunder-and-lightning storm that caused him to seek shelter on the second night and some cramps from the heat on the first day, Charlie reached his goal with more than 15 hours to spare. He received a commemorative belt buckle for his efforts. In all, he ran 100 miles (the equivalent of about four full-marathons) in less than three days and proved to himself once again that he is capable of great things.

“I think everyone goes into this race with their own idea of what they want to achieve,” Charlie says. “There are people who want to win the race [this year’s winner was a 58-year-old who ran 203 miles], and there are people who go just to see how much they can do. I’ve been wanting to do 100 miles for a long time, so that was my goal. It was awesome when I realized that I had actually done it!”

And Charlie is quick to add that he couldn’t have done it without his “crew” – as he calls it – of one: wife Carol. She set up a little tent that she described as more like a beach cabana on the course with a stash of supplies including special hydration mixes, high-protein gels and bars, pickles, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and (on the suggestion of a fellow runner) V8 vegetable juice. When the storm began threatening, Carol drove to a local Walmart and purchased a waterproof tarp to throw over the tent to keep everything dry.

“I couldn’t have done this without Carol,” Charlie says. “She was my crew and had everything ready when I needed it.”

Best-Laid Plans

When Charlie started the race at noon on Friday, September 2, his goal was to complete 50 miles before taking a break for some sleep at a nearby hotel. But the 12-noon start was during the heat of the day and wiped him out sooner than expected.

“I had a day-by-day plan, but we had to adjust that,” Charlie says. “When I started the race, it was 90 degrees with no shade. My original plan was to run all night long, until 10 the next morning, before stopping, to give me a good base of miles. But the heat of the day just sucked me dry. By 2:00 a.m., I was baked. 

My legs were cramping. I decided to go one more lap and call it a night.”

After 3-1/2 hours of sleep, Charlie was back on the course. He had completed 31 laps that first day and was hoping to get to 80 by the end of the second day. But the Saturday night thunderstorm quashed those plans, too, and Charlie headed back to the hotel for a 2-1/2-hour nap after having run 41 miles. He returned to the course for a few more hours, so he could reach the 90-mile mark, then settled in for a final 2-1/2-hour rest before finishing those last 10 miles in a flourish. By Sunday night at 9:00, he was done.

“I was feeling good,” Charlie says of those last 10 miles. “I knew it was almost over. I thought, if I can get through these 10, I want a cold beer and some sleep. I was in a good mood. I knew I had it.”

Knowing he had until noon on Monday to complete the race, Charlie contemplated waking up the next morning and going back to the course to add a few more miles to his total. Then he came to his senses.

“My goal was to hit 100, and I hit 100,” Charlie says. “I had done what I set out to do and didn’t need to do anymore. There was no point to it. I got my buckle. I wasn’t going to get anything else for doing 20 more miles.”

So, instead of running more miles, Charlie and Carol hopped into their car and headed back home, first stopping in Atlanta to visit family. When they returned to Lake Mary, Charlie rested a bit, got a nice massage, and then started slowly training for his next race – a comparatively simple half-marathon he and Carol ran in the Everglades on October 22.

Charlie hopes his later-in-life passion inspires others to give distance running a try.

“People often say, ‘I can’t run or I wish I could run,’ or something like that,” Charlie says. “I always say – with a few exceptions – you can do this. You can do what I did. You may not be able to do it this year, but you can do it... and I would be happy to help you get started!”