When the pack takes off in Saturday's Pear Blossom Run, nobody will be happier to be running than Mark Gosson.

The Medford man has wanted to run the Pear for as long as he can remember, but for just as long, his weight made running about as likely as flying. Even walking was an effort back in November 2005, when he weighed 365 pounds.

That's when Gosson decided to have stomach-reduction surgery, and he vowed that he would run the Pear when his weight came down. Now he's half the man he once was, and ready to do something he thought would never happen.

"This is a whole new life," he said as he jogged on an elliptical trainer earlier this week.

Gosson, 46, started training for the Pear Blossom back in December, a year after surgery. By then he'd lost 180 pounds. For months he had been walking regularly, keeping track of each day's steps with a pedometer and recording his progress on a spread sheet.

Advertisement

"The pedometer helped me tremendously," he said, because it gave him an accurate record of his daily exercise instead of a vague estimate of how much distance he'd covered.

Still, the thought of running 10 miles was overpowering for a man whose last athletic activity came as a lineman in junior high football. Looking for a place to start, he bought a book about training to run a marathon.

"For me, that (10 miles) was like a marathon," he said.

Working as a corporate trainer for Lithia Motors, he was constantly on the road. He walked or ran wherever work took him, whether it was Anchorage, Alaska, or Odessa, Texas. He logged thousands of steps in airports from Florida to Seattle, ran on treadmills in motels, and jogged down city streets.

Running on a treadmill with a TV for entertainment turned out to be easier than running outdoors.

"It was mindless," he said. "Running outdoors it was harder to stay motivated. I would set goals. I would run to the next telephone pole, and then I'd run to the next one. Then when I had to walk I'd walk to the next telephone pole."

In early spring, he enrolled in a health club class for people who wanted to train for the run.

"He always had more questions than anybody else," said Steven Gillen, who led the class. Gillen slowly increased the distance they covered, from two miles to three, then four and five and six.

Gillen helped Gosson and other neophyte runners realize they could gradually push themselves farther than they realized. "Running's not an easy sport," he said. "It does take effort. You're pushing your body to make it do things it doesn't really want to do."

"The key is listening to your body," Gillen said. "You bring the mileage up slowly and let your body get used to it."

When Gosson first announced his goal to run the Pear, a number of family members and friends said they'd run with him. But when he started training, only his wife, Dawn, and a longtime friend, Wayne Cowley of Medford, actually agreed to follow through. He walked with his wife when he was at home.

Dawn Gosson, also 46, said her husband's single-minded pursuit of his goal has helped her change her eating habits and get more exercise, too. Following his example, she's lost 45 pounds herself.

"It makes you feel like you can do anything," she said, "and that's a wonderful feeling."

Mark Gosson and Cowley trained mostly by themselves, but kept each other abreast of their progress.

"He'd say, 'I ran seven-and-a-half miles on the treadmill. What are you doing?' " Cowley recalled.

In one sense, the actual race will be something of an anticlimax. Gosson has covered the distance twice in the past 10 days, walking and running, so he knows it's within his ability. But he feels nervous about running with hundreds of people and getting carried away in the enthusiasm.

"I'm a real competitive person," he said. "I know some people take off too fast and can't finish. I want to be real careful about that."

He fully expects to walk at least part of the course on race day, but that won't diminish his sense of accomplishment.

"I don't consider myself by any stretch of the imagination to be a runner," he said. "I can't run 10 miles. I plan on walking a lot of it. Some will say I didn't really run the Pear Blossom. That's OK. That's not for me. I don't have anything to prove to anybody else except Mark. ... I'm going to get my Pear Blossom T-shirt and wear it with pride."

After the Pear, Gosson will start working toward his next goal. He wants to climb Mount McLoughlin.

Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492 or e-mail bkettler@mailtribune.com.