BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — JC Lippold is an athlete, a sentence he still can’t believe.
As a kid always picked last in gym class, JC never felt athletic, faking injuries and illness to skip track and field day and the dreaded mile run.
“Four times around the football field seemed like a lot longer than a mile,” said Lippold. “For weeks leading up I would figure out ways to get out of it.”
But JC didn’t want those days to define him, and he went on to coach tennis, teach yoga and then run.
Twelve years ago, JC entered Grandma’s Marathon, determined to finish even though he hadn’t trained at all.
“My first marathon was the first time I ran 13 miles, the first time I ran 20 miles, the first time I ran 26 miles,” he said.
He ran all of those miles, and says that day he felt not just a physical shift, but a mental one.
“There is no better drug than getting to the end of a marathon and going, ‘I just did this thing!’” said Lippold. “Regardless of what happened during those 26 miles, you go, ‘I just did this thing.’”
JC was officially a marathoner, running 17 more before setting his sights on the biggest one of all: New York City.
But last fall, when he didn’t get in, JC ran his own race, taking part in the New York City virtual marathon where runners finish 26.2 miles on any route they choose.
So instead of running Brooklyn, JC ran Brooklyn Center, revisiting all the spots that meant so much.
“I had the opportunity to return to these places of my childhood where I have the best of memories and the biggest formation moments of my life,” said Lippold.
Starting on the front steps of the house where he grew up, JC ran to his elementary school, his middle school, his high school, through the streets of his childhood paper route, and around the football field he’d hated all those years ago. After dozens of other races, he calls that the best of his life.
“When people say, ‘What’s been your favorite marathon?’ I would run that 26.2 again and again,” Lippold said.
And then, just last month, JC ran the New York City Marathon, reaching a goal he’d dreamed of for years but one he once thought was impossible.
“The metaphor played out,” said Lippold. “It was, ‘OK I’ve done this thing that for so long I said I can’t.’ And what happens after we do those things? We fly.”