Larry Macon Just Won’t Stop Running

By Rose Cahalan in Blog, Special on January 4, 2013 at 3:08 pm | 1 Comment

Need some inspiration to keep that New Year’s resolution to exercise? Look no further than marathon maniac Larry Macon.

Macon, JD ’70, broke the Guinness World Record for most marathons completed in a year on Dec. 31, when he finished his 157th marathon of the year. At 26.2 miles per race, Macon logged more than 4,100 miles in 2012. He’s now broken his own world record for the last four consecutive years.

He does it all while working full-time as an attorney in San Antonio, traveling to do multiple marathons on the weekends. At age 68—and with a lifetime total of 984 marathons—is he thinking about slowing down?

“My plans are to scale it back,” he says, “but I’ve told myself that many times before. I just finished another one this morning, actually.”

Macon wears out 13 pairs of shoes per year, and he’s even held conference calls while running. Astonishingly, he’s never been injured.

The question everyone asks him, of course, is why. You might think Macon is an adrenaline junkie who races to break records and get attention—but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s just a man who really, really loves to run.

“I just enjoy it so darn much,” he says. “I have a lot of fun out there.”

Larry Macon at the finish line of the Texas Savage Seven Marathon in San Antonio on Dec. 31—his 157th marathon for 2012.

Tags: guinness world record, Larry Macon, marathon, race, running