Merriman Piling Up Miles: RUNNING NOTEBOOK
By Roberta Macinnis, Houston Chronicle
May 24–Paul Merriman was starting his 44,983rd mile the first time I caught up with him, in front of the Memorial Park Tennis Center.
Merriman, 80, had written to me about how he’d recorded all his mileage since he started running in 1967. He’d run in more than 25 states and 160 cities and in several countries and was due to hit 45,000 miles in a few weeks. He planned to celebrate with his family, including his wife, Pat, and some of their seven children.
Truth is, Merriman walks these days — four miles each morning — as he has since his first pacemaker was installed in 1994. But he retains the mindset.
“Me and you, Roberta, runners for life,” he had signed his message.
As we walk around the Seymour Lieberman Exer-Trail, Merriman tells me about his life as a runner. We talk about notable things — his 3:28 personal record in the marathon and how his wife was an accomplished race walker and triathlete — but also about small ones: how his first pair of running shoes cost $8.95 and the time a homeless man yelled “But why?!”as he ran by.
Exercise, Merriman explains, was the good habit he used to replace some bad ones: smoking, drinking too much, working too hard as a salesman. He didn’t miss a day for the first eight years.
“Everything I had wrong in my life went away when I started to jog. Isn’t that something?” said Merriman, who recorded the miles in chalk on the back of the family’s three garage doors.
Full of pride Jane Wilson, who lives in McLean, Va., remembers her father going out for morning runs in those early days wearing beat-up dress shoes and baggy work pants. His unstylish Marine-issue haircut, which he still had 20 years after he served, also set him apart.
“He was the talk of the neighborhood — nobody was running back then,” Wilson said. “For the few that were doing physical activity, Jack LaLanne exercises were in mode, and people actually thought you could lose weight with those vibrating belt machines.”
The buzz cut is gone, but Merriman is as much a Marine for life as he is a runner for life. He favors red, one of the Marine Corps’ official colors. The morning we met, his cap, socks and “Marines” T-shirt all were red.
“Semper Fi! Do or die!” He exchanges greetings with a younger man walking in the opposite direction. People salute him. We pass his car, a pristine red 1998 Buick Riviera with “Iwo” on its vanity plates.
Merriman still fits into his Marine uniform, which he wears when he volunteers to speak before school groups about his experiences at the Battle of Iwo Jima.
Merriman says he knew two of the men immortalized in the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington, D.C. He’s run the Marine Corps Marathon — which ends at the Iwo Jima Monument — twice but talks about it in the present tense.
“I’ll go over to the base of the monument and look at the guys. And I’ll just sit there and cry,” he said before pausing. “Emotionally, I think I’m just tired (from the marathon). I’m so happy to be sad.”
Hawaii on his mind The second time I catch up with Merriman at the park, he’s happy, period. He’s wearing a 1989 Honolulu Marathon T-shirt — his last marathon — and his traditional red socks.
The family is taking photos, laughing and teasing each other. I learn that Pat Merriman has always baked a cake to celebrate every 5,000 miles her husband completed, but today they’re planning to walk with him as he reaches mile 45,000. Some of his children are wearing the “Got Merriman?” T-shirts they had made for his 80th birthday. That party, his wife jokes, lasted three days.
His children — some of them runners, too — are proud of their father — and their mother.
“I think running gives my dad time to think up new ways to make the world a better place,” said Laura Merriman, the middle child.
Merriman and his family walk the same stretch several times so a photographer can set up a shot. Merriman plays to the camera, raising his arms high and running a few steps at a time. Then they start out for the real walk together.
“My family had a ball, as you could tell,” Merriman tells me later.
During our first walk, I asked Merriman what his goal would be after he reached 45,000 miles. He surprised me by saying he was thinking of cutting back to every other day. I wouldn’t count on it.
After we parted ways, I drove once around the loop because it was such a nice day. I saw Merriman heading for his car — at a jog.
Me and you, Paul. Runners for life.
roberta.macinnis@chron.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, Houston Chronicle
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