Lebanon runner, 68, is "only" five marathons away from completing one in all 50 states

If you're partial to using Lebanon County's many miles of rail trail, whether to run, walk or bike, you might run into Ron Newhart, 68. Rather, he might be running towards you.

From his backyard where he has direct access to the Lebanon Valley Rail Trail, about 13 miles to his left and another two to his right, Newhart can be found running in the early morning hours, training for his next marathon.

"If you're doing a full training cycle, on the weekends, usually on a Saturday, I'll start out with a longer run, like 10 miles," he said. "Then the following week you do 12, then the following week you do 14, and you work your way all the way up to 20. You want to finish 20 miles three weeks before the marathon because after you've done the 20, then you want to, what they call ... taper. So you taper back down to let your muscles completely recoup from the training."

Originally from the Allentown area, Newhart began running during his time at Penn State, studying electrical engineering, after serving four years in the Army. While attending, it was mandatory to take physical education courses, so he enrolled in a course called fitness and games. The professor of that course, John Lucas, was one of the foremost Olympics historians who, prior to his death, attended every summer Olympic games from 1960 until the 2012 London Summer Olympics. He also coached the Nittany Lions track and field and cross country teams from 1962 until 1968.

Newhart recalled that on the very first day of the class, as Lucas had them running three miles around a golf course, students began to ask him, "Well when are we going to play games?" To which Lucas replied,"We're not."

After graduating, Newhart moved to Vermont, where he began working as an engineer for IBM, met his wife, Patsy, and started a family. Over time, he grew further and further away from running.

It was after he came back from a work assignment in France, where he says he gained a considerable amount of weight, when he decided to get back into running and eat healthier than he had been.

While on his journey to healthier living, he was a made aware of a marathon right outside of town.

"One of my friends at work at IBM had run one and told me, here's what you have to do to prepare, here's all the training cycles you have to go through and how many weeks it takes. So I did it, and I ran my first marathon there and I got hooked."

He completed that first marathon in 1998, and would do that same marathon five more times over the years.

Nowadays, Newhart's average pace for a mile is around 9:30, running around four and a half hours to complete a marathon, depending on the conditions of the race.

Usually, he said, he needs at least a week to recover from a race. While 20 miles is something that he gets to during training leading up to a race, he described those last 6.2 miles as the hardest parts.

"There's something about pushing yourself to the limit of your physical endurance that's, you know, you get to find things out about yourself that you didn't realize you could do."

In 2016, Ron and Patsy moved to Lebanon to be closer to family.

It was shortly after he moved to Lebanon at a marathon in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he he met then 71-year-old Jim Lathrop, who was on his final race of 50, introducing him to the idea of the 50 States Marathon Club.

"At that point I had done five or six states, I had done Pennsylvania, Vermont, North Carolina, and Virginia because I did the Marine Corps (Marathon) a couple of times, because my daughter lived in Virginia."

After learning about the club, he started taking running more seriously, scheduling several marathons a year. Usually around six to seven a year, but as many as eight in one year.

He explained that before you can even register for the club, you have to run 10 states and document that you've completed them. The club is particular, he said, with "virtual marathons" during the pandemic, where a runner would register for a marathon but run it locally and track it on a smart watch, not counting towards the goal because they weren't run in that state.

In 2020, Newhart only ran two marathons, Louisiana and Mississippi, before the pandemic put a halt to his progress.

Newhart had also run a race in Maryland once already, but because the starting line was just inside Washington D.C., it didn't count towards his 50 states, he said.

A cabinet in their basement showcases some of Newhart's accomplishments as a marathoner and books he's read from other accomplished runners, medals from the many marathons that he's completed, dating back to before he knew about the club. On the right side of the cabinet, above the medals, a map with photos of him running in each state is nearly filled out.

He also keeps a book with every bib he's worn.

To date, Newhart only has Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland left, with a four state in four months stretch starting at Eugene, Oregon in April and ending in North Bend, Washington in July.

On Oct. 19, he will run his final marathon in Baltimore, Maryland, officially joining the 50 states marathon club.

His goal of running a marathon in all 50 states has taken the Newharts, obviously, all across the country, into towns and cities and state parks they otherwise wouldn't have seen.

On his Journey he's run both the Boston Marathon and Chicago Marathon, which both require runners to qualify before being able to participate.

He's also participated in the Athens Marathon in Greece, known as the authentic marathon, commemorating the soldier in 490 B.C., who ran from the town of Marathon, Greece to Athens, Greece carrying the message of victory and who, according to legend, collapsed and died once he delivered the message.

While he can describe something unique and interesting about seemingly every race he's run and every place he's been, Jackson Hole Marathon in Wyoming, where he ran the valley underlooking the Grand Teton Mountain range the Rocket City Marathon in Huntsville Alabama where he under the backdrop of a NASA space shuttle, were especially notable.

"To me, it's not just doing the marathon," he said. "It's getting to places that I would never have gone to, if it had not been for the fact that I had to go to that state to run a marathon."

Considering that he didn't partake in many marathons throughout most of the pandemic, Newhart will have completed 46 marathons in about seven years once he completes the Baltimore Marathon.

For the Newharts, preparation is key. They've already got all of their trips plotted out for the year and before each marathon they head out to plot a course of where Patsy can meet with Ron while he's running to quickly hand him ice cold Gatorade and anything else that he might need during the race.

Of course, there are can always be surprises that they can't anticipate for, like his last marathon at Lake Mead Marathon in Nevada, where they mistakenly showed up on the day of the race to pick his packet and bib, instead of the day before.

With only minutes until the starting line would close, not enough time to drive all the way back to the hotel, Newhart ran the first 11 or so miles of the race in his jeans and and a pullover until he could stop at a rest stop to change into the running clothes that Patsy brought back.

Out of five other runners in his age group, Newhart still had the best time, despite the jeans.

"He's learned to have a good sense of humor," Patsy Newhart said. "He got it right over 44 times."

Weather is another important variable in running a race. In 2019 at the Newport Rhodes Race in Newport, Rhode Island, a nor'easter ripped right through the area. Despite it, the race was still held.

"It rained like an inch and a half during the race, I was like soaked to the core, and it was like 45 degrees," he recalled. "I said it was a miracle I didn't die of hypothermia. It was was supposed to be the race of 100,000 daffodils, I don't remember seeing any daffodils. All's I remember is water dripping down off my hat."

Along with rain, heat and high elevations are the most challenging conditions to run a marathon in. Cold is a bit easier, he said, as he's usually able to bring his body temperature up with running.

To help with temperature, he tries to schedule marathons at hot climates during the winter and cold climates during the summer. For example, he ran the Big Life Runs Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska in August of 2021.

Jackson Hole, he said, was one of the most difficult races he's had to run, at an altitude of around 6,200 feet. At the end of that race he had to receive oxygen, because his saturation level was down and he was beginning to feel light headed.

The elevation really makes a difference, he said, especially compared to Lebanon County.

One thing that Newhart hasn't quite prepared for is what he'll do once he finishes his final marathon in Baltimore. He'll continue running, he said, but likely won't be partaking in many more marathons. Certainly, he said, he wouldn't be partaking in something like an ultramarathon.

"At this point, I think I'm ready to stop doing marathons. I'm 68 now, so I'll be 69 when I do my 50th state. I'll have a total then of 62 marathons." "I might do more half-marathons and do more casual running, I'm not going to stop running, because I love to run."

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on X @djlarlham.

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: Lebanon marathoner nears his goal of running in all 50 states.