End Notes
Marathon Man
Sports medicine physician Rob Johnson has been running marathons for more than 30 years—and he’s nowhere near the finish line.
By Kim Kiser
Nearly every morning, you’ll find Rob Johnson, M.D., on the run. Leaving the house sometimes well before sun up, the sports medicine physician takes to the roads near his Eden Prairie home and logs at least three to five miles before heading off to his practice and his job of directing the sports medicine fellowship he started at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) in 1987.
For Johnson, running is a way of life. And at age 63, he has the distinguished honor of being a member of the “charter club”—a group of about 50 athletes who have completed all 29 Twin Cities Marathons. “We’re an aging group,” Johnson admits, noting that nearly all of his fellow club members were in their 30s when they completed the first Twin Cities Marathon in 1982.
Johnson ran his first marathon—the City of Lakes Marathon—in 1976, when he was a resident at HCMC. He ran it with a friend. The friend finished, but Johnson dropped out at mile 23. “It was a brutally cold day—windy, rainy, snowy. I got too cold,” he recalls. Not making it to the end made him all the more determined to try again. “Having failed, I thought I had to finish at least one.”
That first one was Grandma’s Marathon in 1978. He has since completed all but four Grandma’s marathons (he didn’t enter the first one in 1977 and missed one because of injury, another because he was traveling in Ireland, and another because he was attending a friend’s wedding). He has also run the Boston Marathon four times, including the 100th anniversary race, as well as several other races around the United States.
For Johnson, training for and competing in marathons is about accomplishment. “It’s a pretty spectacular feeling when you come to the Cathedral and look down that hill and see thousands of people at the finish line and you remind yourself that there are only maybe a half million people in the United States who are able to accomplish this,” he says, admitting that the training is more fun than the actual race. “With training, there’s no pressure. In a marathon, you’re always doing a little clock-watching.”
He admits that he has slowed down over the years. His time in the 2010 Twin Cities marathon was 3 hours, 49 minutes—about an hour slower than his fastest time. But his training routine hasn’t faltered. During the off season, he logs about 30 miles a week, and in the winter, he sometimes combines running with cross-country skiing (he has completed the American Birkebeiner, Vasaloppet USA, and City of Lakes Loppet). When getting ready for a marathon, he ramps it up to about 50 miles a week, including 20- to 24-mile runs. Johnson doesn’t anticipate hanging up his running shoes anytime soon (he says the 30th Twin Cities Marathon is already on his calendar for next year). And as a physician, he says staying in shape is something he’ll always try to do. “My goal is to never be unfit,” he says. “Exercise is a valuable tool for health promotion and disease prevention, so I better practice what I preach.” MM
Kim Kiser is associate editor of Minnesota Medicine.