WRITTEN BY TROY HENDRICKS '22
STANDISH, Maine – As the decade comes to an end we start to look back on the accomplishments achieved over the past ten years. Cross Country and Track & Field Head Coach Tom Dann ended the 2010's by reaching an impressive milestone on the last day of the year.
Since he started running in January of 1972, Dann has kept a record of every mile he has ever run. Now, forty-eight years later, he's reached an impressive 50,000 miles. This includes every race, workout, and long-run he has laced his running shoes up for. To put this in perspective, that's enough miles to run around the circumference of the earth twice...
Dann, who has served as the Monks' head or assistant cross country coach for over 23 years, has been a passionate runner for almost all of his life. There's a quote that goes, "Every mile a memory" and for Coach Dann, this is very true. Asking his athletes, they can tell you about the many "running stories" Dann has to share from his experience over the forty-eight years he's been running for.
Dann has run for a total of 8,850 days which is 50.5% of the 17,531 days over the last 48 years. His average distance ran for days in which he hit the trails is 5.65 miles while his 48-year average overall is 2.85 miles per day. His "best ten years" of running were from 1983-1992, a span during which he ran seventy-four straight months with more than one hundred plus miles.
Dann has run all over the United States, having trekked in thirty different states, and even in Canada. 30,293 miles of his fifty thousand have been run in Maine alone. Running all over America, his highest elevation run was at the continental divide which is 12,000 ft and his lowest was at Death Valley being - 282 ft. Rain or shine, Coach Dann has run in some extreme weather conditions. His hottest run was 117 degrees (air temperature) and his coldest run was at a brisk - 17 degrees.
Over the forty-eight years, he's competed in 563 races. These range from many types of races whether its 5k's, college cross country races, and even marathons (five marathons to be exact). He's collected a total of 120 first-place finishes, 77 second-place finishes, and 57 third-place finishes. He even competed in the NCAA DIII National XC Championship in 1977 for his college, Wittenberg University in Ohio.
Coach Dann's passion for running and drive to reach a milestone like this one is an inspiration to the many people around him, especially his past and present athletes. His next goal is to complete ten thousand runs.
"Little did I know what was ahead of me when I started recording my daily runs in the spring of 1972 as a freshman on my high school track & field team," adds Coach Dann. "I certainly wasn't thinking about reaching 50,000 miles someday. Here I am, though, 48 years later and still pushing on. And the reason I do is mostly because of the rich relationships I have developed throughout all these years both as a runner and as a coach of runners. I definitely do not take for granted the successes I have had and the friendships I have enjoyed during these years as a runner. I am just happy that it continues on… for how long, who knows…maybe one more time "around the earth"."
50,000 Mile Equivalents:
- Run around the Earth twice
- 75 million steps (1500 per mile avg.)
- 264 million feet
- 88 million yards, or 880,000 lengths of a football field
Other Random Facts:
- Recommended 50,000 mile car service: replace battery, brake fluid, brake pads/shoes, brake rotors, coolant, and transmission fluid
- Average lifetime of a motorcycle is 50,000 miles
- Average person drives 13,476 miles per year
| COACH DANN 'BACK IN THE DAY' | ||
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