PROFILE--Sam Cox has been running for 49 years

Finishing a marathon last November.

 (Feb. 2020) Sam Cox started running in 1972 to get in shape for football, but soon realized that a running-focus made more sense for him. Six years later, he completed his first marathon, and almost qualified for  Boston. The next year, he did qualify, running a 2:48. He would eventually reduce that time all the way down to 2:30:58. Now 62 and living in Greensboro, NC, he still logs 40 to 45 miles a week, and races marathons despite foot problems (Haglund's) and a history of atrial fibrillation. "I am grateful to be out there running, slow or not," he says. "Nothing clears my mind, reduces my tension, fosters my creative side, allows me to think, to ponder, to pray, or to imagine quite like a good run."

Career-profession? I graduated Wake Forest University in 1981 with my BS degree, where I walked on to the cross country and track teams and ran my sophomore and senior years, and was on an Army ROTC scholarship. Following graduate work at the University of South Carolina (MS) in 1983, I served five years in the army in San Antonio and Germany. I then began a career in education (while working part-time in the Army Reserves, retiring in 2002), picking up additional graduate degrees at Oregon State University (1991) and The College of William & Mary (1993) while teaching history, coaching cross country and track, and then moving into educational administration. I spent the past 25 years