Archdeacon: They are the ‘Stars’ of the Air Force Marathon

“I was pretty excited. I felt like I was Superman, but when I told my dad, he said ‘Why did you do that? You’re all sweaty. Go take a shower!’”

Hot water and soap took away the sweat. But nothing has washed off that question.

Today, some 5½ decades later, when it comes to running, the uninitiated still might ask Gestrich that same question:

“Why? Why did you do that?”

Especially since that 10-block loop has expanded for Gestrich, who’s now a 63-year-old engineer, retired from Wright Patterson Air Force Base and living in Bellbrook.

Eight days ago, he ran the Germantown 50K race, which equates to approximately 31 miles.

He’s run the JFK 50-Mile Race – which began the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated – multiple times.

The race – which begins in Boonsboro, Maryland and includes 13 miles on the rocky Appalachian Trail – is the oldest continuously-run ultramarathon in the United States and one of the toughest.

His resume includes 75 marathons and 52 ultramarathons, but no place is his effort – and those of 20 other runners, eight of whom are also from the Miami Valley – more celebrated than at the U.S. Air Force Marathon, which is being run again this Saturday.

Gestrich and the other 20 have run every marathon here since the race began in 1997, a feat that has them designated as “Star Runners“ and gets them VIP treatment throughout race weekend.

While the 21 have started every race, only about 10 have completed each race before the time limits. That technicality came last year when withering heat challenged the health of slower runners and prompted race organizers to allow all of the pioneers to maintain their Star status regardless of their finish.

“At this point I hate seeing anyone get eliminated from the group,” said Gestrich, who did complete the 2024 Marathon in time. “It’s great coming back every year and seeing them all again and sharing some memories.”

The 21 Stars include 16 men and five women. The oldest this year will be 78-year-old Clyde Landry from Colorado Springs, Colorado, while the youngest is 51-year-old Scott Griffith from Black Hawk, Colorado,

The star of the Stars – if you judge by a stopwatch – is Danny Pounder, a 66-year-old runner from Moore, Oklahoma who has had several sub three-hour finishes, including a 2-hour, 48-minute race here in 1999.

If you’re judging by showmanship, the star is Gary Moroney, a USAF veteran who lives in Cypress, Texas. Last year he ran the 5K and 10K races and the full marathon – a jam-packed effort called the “Fly! Fight! Win! Challenge.”

“He’s a little bit of a character,” Gestrich said. “Last year he ran in a tuxedo that was shiny blue and had sequins and long tails.”

Yet, time and tails aside, one of the most impressive Stars is Steve Wirick, a 73-year-old runner from Vandalia, who has an unrivaled list of accomplishments, when you consider not only what he has done, but what he’s helped others do.

According to race organizers there, he is among the Top 40 all-time finishers in the race that has drawn runners from all 50 states and 20 nations over its 62-year history.

Last November he completed the race in 12 hours 55 minutes and became its oldest finisher.

He’s run 21 Germantown 50Ks, which is more than anyone else. He’s done the challenging Stone Steps 50K in Cincinnati 16 times, the Xenia Marathon numerous times, and a pair of 100 mile races – the Mohican Trail 100 and the rugged Massanutten Mountain Trail, which includes a 1,600 foot climb over rocky terrain.

The list goes on and on, encompassing 111 ultramarathons and 55 marathons.

While proud of these accomplishments – especially his Stars’ streak at the Air Force Marathon – he said he gets just as much satisfaction and often more inner reward from the things he does with others.

He helped Dee Char – who was born with retinal degenerative disease and lost most of her sight in her 20s – train for an ultra marathon in 2016 when she was in her 50s.

He befriended Larry Smith, now 87, a former distance runner who, with the help of an aid, logged more than 75,000 miles in his career. Wirick now helps take him places, whether it’s out to dinner, to a concert or just to run errands.

Steve and his wife Carol volunteer at many races in the area and in 2023 the Ohio River Road Racers Club named him its Male Volunteer of the Year.

Beyond racing, the couple are superstars at the Versiti Blood Donation Center. To date, Carol has donated 300 units of blood and platelets, and Steve has given 241.

Not long before his death last year, a declining Bob Schul – the West Milton farm boy who, as a Miami University student, went to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and became the only American ever to win a gold medal in the 5000 meters – got one final shining moment thanks to Wirick.

He took Schul to the Cincinnati Reds’ Opening Day parade, which included a celebration of area Olympians. Although Schul initially had been overlooked, Wirick got him on one of the floats and soon the old runner was all smiles as he was cheered by the crowds.

This coming week it will be Wirick, Gestrich and the other Star runners who will be getting a royal embrace at Air Force marathon events.

“They give us real VIP treatment,” Wirick said as we spoke at his Vandalia home the other day.

The Stars runners get the lowest digit bib numbers among the 8,500 runners who take part in the events.

They get VIP parking places for the race – “We park where the generals park,” Wirick said with a grin – and they are guests in the VIP Tent near the finish line.

“We even get to use the special potty truck which is air conditioned and has flush toilets!” laughed Gestrich.

They are hosted at a private reception Friday and over the years have met the race’s guest speakers including Olympians like Alberto Salazar, Bill Rodgers and Meb Keflezighi, the refugee from Eritrea who became a U.S. citizen, won the New York City and Boston marathons and was a silver medalist in the marathon at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Keflezighi gave each Star runner an autographed copy of his life story, “Run to Overcome.”

“I just don’t get treated like that anywhere else in life,” Gestrich said. “It makes you feel kind of special.”

‘I needed an Angel’

Wirick simply wanted to improve his cholesterol numbers when he started running.

“The first time I ran completely around a track I was coughing and spitting. I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “But after a while I could run a half hour without stopping, then an hour. “I never really loved it, but for those 30 or 40 minutes when I wasn’t comfortable, there were the other 23 hours of the day where I felt good because of my exercising.”

He would meet other guys at the Base gym for lunchtime runs and was befriended by Bob Johnson, the lieutenant colonel who ran marathons for 52 years.

When someone suggested he try a marathon, Wirick said: “I went to the library and found a book on how to run a marathon.”

As for Gestrich, he graduated from Cleveland State and got civilian engineering jobs at a couple of military posts before coming to Wright Patterson AFB in 1996.

“When I got here, I decided to try endurance running,” he said. “The first time I came to the gym, I didn’t know anybody, but I saw an old guy standing off to the side, stretching before he was going out to run.

“I thought, ‘It’ll be easier for me to stay with him.’”

It turned out the old guy was Johnson.

“He about ran my legs off that day,” Gestrich said with a laugh.

The two developed a bond as did many of the lunchtime runners.

That’s where Wirick met Randy Hildebrandt in 2016, right before the Air Force Marathon.

“We’d both worked out and were getting dressed to go back to work and we started talking about the Marathon,” Wirick said. “He told me he and his daughter were running it, but he said no more.”

It wasn’t until Wirick saw the Sunday newspaper, which had a big article I’d written about Randy and his wife Bonnie’s daughter, Caleigh, that he learned what a story the Hildebrandt’s had.

In the nearly three decades the race has been run, there has been no competitor who has stirred more hearts and produced more tears than Caleigh Hildebrandt.

Born with spina bifida and the myriad problems that come with it, she had 40 surgeries in her young life but still managed to graduate from Bellbrook High in 2012 and work a job at McGohan Brabender, where founder, Pat McGohan dubbed her Little Miss Sunshine and had her serve as his CHO – Chief Happiness Officer.

She wanted to join her dad – a retired Lt. Colonel in the Air Force now working a civilian job at the Base – and compete in the 2016 Air Force Marathon. To do so they planned to put her inside a Burley jogging stroller and have Dad then add the leg power as she provided the voice, will and inspiration.

Two weeks before the race she was diagnosed with cancer – stage IV carcinoma – and though the chemo treatments were rough, she did do the race and was cheered at the finish line by a tearful crowd.

The next year she planned to race again and Wirick was going to run with her and her dad, but she became too ill to compete. She died a couple of weeks after the race on October 5, 2017. She was just 24.

Last year Wirick found himself struggling in the race.

It was hot, he wasn’t feeling his best and feared for the first time ever, he might have to quit the marathon.

“I needed some help,” said Wirick, who is a devout Catholic. “If I was going to finish, I needed some kind of sign. I needed an angel.”

He got both at about mile 16 when he came upon Randy and Bonnie – whom he had stayed in contact with – holding up a sign that read “Go Team Caleigh.”

They were there to cheer their son, but they lifted Wirick, as well.

They handed him the sign and then came the angel.

“Caleigh helped me finish last year,” he said quietly, the emotion welling up in his words.

‘Best race of my life’

Earlier in his career, Gestrich believed he had to follow a certain regimen - “I had to eat this pasta the night before, take those vitamins,” - to best perform at a race.

“Then one year at the Columbus Marathon, they changed the location, and I had to park and run about a mile to get to the race,” he said. “I was in the porta potty when the (starter’s) gun went off.”

Just as Superman used to emerge from a phone booth, Gestrich burst out of the porta-potty and chased down the pack of runners.

“I ended up running the best race of my life,” he laughed.

Coming into Saturday’s race, he’s dealing with a torn right meniscus he suffered in January. Rather than surgery, he decided to let it heal enough so he could run now:

“I’ve always resolved that no matter how bad I feel, I’m going to get to the start line. If I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail out on the course, not sitting at home on the couch,”

Wirick admitted he also hasn’t been able to train like he wants this year:

“It’s been so hot, and I have other commitments now – other priorities.”

Wirick and his wife have 12 grandchildren – most of whom live in the area – and there are times now in the family when a baby’s bib is far more important than a race bib.

He laughed as he related an exchange a while back after he’d just come home from running a 50K race in Englewood.

As he was relaying details of his race, his daughter Beth – with a bit of paraphrase here – told him: “Great, Dad…Great…Could you babysit?”

Her son Ken was just a year old and Wirick gladly did it.

“I still love running, but nothing beats this,” he said. To make his point, he took out his phone and played a video from a month ago.

He had been at nearby Taylorsville Dam, jogging slowly as his three-year-old grandson, David, rode his little bicycle.

Soon the boy was off his bike, saying he wanted to run with Papaw.

Wirick slipped ahead playfully, and David chased him until he could grab his grandfather’s hand.

“I caught Papaw!” he said joyfully. “I caught Papaw!”

The pair then went on down the wooded trail together.

“He thought it was pretty special,” Wirick said quietly.

A lot of other people at the Air Force Marathon feel the same about him, Gestrich and the rest of the Stars runners.

That’s why they have VIP status.

And that’s why Gestrich finally can answer his dad’s nagging question.

AIR FORCE MARATHON ‘STAR’ RUNNERS

Archdeacon wins Best Sports Columnist at APME contest

Dayton Daily News sports columnist Tom Archdeacon won first place for Best Sports Columnist in Ohio in the recent Associated Press Managing Editors contest.

His winning entry was accompanied by a comment from the APME judges:

“Archdeacon has been a staple in Dayton for many years and it’s easy to see why. His storytelling is second to none in this class, as evidenced by his personal piece on longtime Flyers coach Don Donoher.”