Runners get a little Goofy with marathons

The Grand Rapids Press

It was officially referred to as Goofy's Race-And-A-Half Challenge at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

According to Grandville High School math teacher Meg Welch, it should have been called the "are you crazy or out of your mind challenge."

Welch, 38, and her niece, former Grandville resident Mandy Burke, 24, were among the nearly 3,000 runners who conquered last Saturday's 13.1-mile half-marathon and Sunday's 26.2-mile marathon as part of Disney World's Marathon weekend.

The ladies had run a total of two marathons before in their lives -- and they were two years apart. They nearly doubled that total in two days.

"We ran the marathon an hour and a half slower than what we'd normally run it, but we can still walk," Welch said.

"This was the first time the Disney Marathon did not run the two races

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on the same day," Welch said. "The organizers decided to run the half on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday and call it, appropriately, I might add, Goofy's Challenge.

"Mandy and I decided, 'What the heck, let's try to do both in two days." '

They did, and they were able to live to tell about it while helping to raise money for the Leukemia Foundation as part of the overall 30,000-runner field.

"It went great," said Welch, who lives in Coopersville with her husband, Mike, and children Erika, 10, and Ben, 7.

"We really took it easy during the half-marathon, knowing we had a full marathon the next day. Then, on Sunday, we really didn't feel the soreness from Saturday until mile six. But we survived.

"Best of all, a lot of money was collected by a lot of runners for Leukemia victims."

Welch and Burke previously had run the Chicago Marathon in 2001 and the Traverse City Marathon in 2003. Last weekend, they finished the half-marathon in 3 hours and 2 minutes, and the marathon in 5:46.

Welch raised $3,700 for the Leukemia Foundation leading up to the event, and over $10,000 through her three marathons to give to the organization. She was one of 41 Michigan runners and walkers who brought in $163,000 for the Leukemia Foundation by taking part in the Disney World Marathon Weekend, and part of the thousands of participants from coast-to-coast who accumulated $6.6 million for the organization.

Welch has now run all three of her marathons in honor of people she knows who have been afflicted by leukemia, or have lost their lives to the disease.

That includes Lindsey Weemhoff, a 16-year-old junior at Forest Hills Central.

"When Meg heard I had become sick at the age of 11, she ran the Chicago Marathon for me," Weemhoff said. "I went to Chicago to watch the race, and I was amazed Meg would do that for me.

"People say I've gone through so much. But for someone to go out and run all those miles for the foundation means a lot to me, and it's incredible what Meg has done."

Weemhoff last underwent chemotherapy treatments 2 1/2 years ago, and currently goes through checkups every six months.

"I'm doing super," said the daughter of Don and Sue Weemhoff. "I feel incredibly blessed, because you hear so many other stories of kids with Leukemia who don't make it, and I see kids in the clinics. My story isn't half as bad as others, because they found my cancer early, and I'm going good now."

Good enough to maybe someday run a marathon of her own?

"I think I'll leave those to Meg," Weemhoff said.