These 3 runners never miss the Delaware Marathon event

Runners are creatures of habit, adhering to routes and routines.

The Delaware Marathon Running Festival has provided such reliability, arriving each spring since 2004 with its variety of distances to test those with diverse abilities.

Among the pack are three Delaware runners have taken part every year and, when Sunday’s 15th annual event arrives, will again be part of the field.

Tom Govindan and Christopher James of Wilmington and David McCorquodale of the Milltown area are among 15 runners who’ve participated each time. 

“Maybe you could say Doug [White] was my inspiration. He had that Boston streak,” McCorquodale said of the Delaware Sports Hall of Famer who ran 43 straight Boston marathons before his death at age 74 in 2016. “ . . . For years I wanted to keep going to Boston. I went a number of years and then I missed one. Then I went like six straight years and I missed another. I wasn’t gonna keep a streak at Boston. The older you get the tougher it gets.”

But Delaware was doable and McCorquodale, who has run a marathon in all 50 states, will make Sunday’s marathon his 151st. He is 73 and has run the marathon at every Delaware festival.

“When Delaware came I said ‘This will be the one I keep a streak going,’” he said. “You just get up in the morning, 15-minute drive and I’m there.”

Race director Corrigan Sports Enterprises moved the festival to the last Sunday in April from its traditional Mother’s Day date to avoid family conflicts.

Sunday’s busy day includes the marathon, half-marathon and four-person marathon relay beginning at 7 a.m. at Tubman Garrett Riverfront Park. A 5k is run Saturday night at 6. Runners may still enter.

“It takes longer to train and it takes longer to finish,” said Govindan, still going strong at age 80.

But it’s all worth it, he said, because “This is probably one of the best things I do that keeps me healthy.”

A retired engineer who still does consulting, Govindan views the Delaware Marathon Running Festival as important in his efforts to stay fit.

He got involved in the Delaware Running Festival initially through team activities and fundraising, especially the Lymphoma and Leukemia Society. He’s on a four-person relay team this year with friends Liz West, Prakash Vaidy and Chitra Vaidy.

Govindan, who insists he is a “jogger” not a runner because of his slow pace, is an avid half-marathoner. He frequently travels out of state to run, including to the western United States. But he’d never dream of missing a Delaware Marathon Running Festival.

He’ll compete, he said, following the motto, “Have the courage to start and determination to finish.”

The marathon is a two-loop course that zips around the riverfront, travels up into downtown, along the Brandywine River and into Little Italy and back. Half-marathoners run one loop and relay runners each cover half a loop for 6.55-mile segments.

When the event was first held in 2004, created to give those wanting to run a marathon in every state a Delaware stop, James entered because he thought it might be the last. He ended up not only giving himself an annual fitness endeavor, he met the woman who would become his wife.

In 2011, some friends asked him to photograph their relay team.

“I’d never met Annie before and I thought ‘Who’s this beautiful girl?’” he said.

They started dating later that year, were engaged in October of 2012 and got married in March of 2013. They’re now the parents of two children, ages 3 and 4.

“It was quite the right-time, right-place sort of thing,” said Annie James, who continues to run herself, including a couple marathons.

This year Chris James will run the half-marathon. He’s done the marathon and relays as well as a 10-miler before it was replaced by the half-marathon.

“I feel like because the race is small but there’s so much variety as far as distance, and there’s so much crowd support, there’s really a distance for everybody,” said James, 43, a pharmacist at Wilmington Hospital. “It makes you feel like everybody’s cheering for you.”

All three runners agreed that the chilly, windy, wet and sometimes snowy spring made training more difficult than usual, especially with the races a couple weeks earlier.

McCorquodale and James each ran spring marathons.

“I just go out and get through it somehow, some way,” McCorquodale said.

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @kevintresolini.