Running With a Fast Crowd

SPOTLIGHT

o a few hardy CPAs, the 15th of April is only the second-most-important day of the month. The real highlight is the 17th—the day of the Boston Marathon.

This year’s contenders will include 65-year-old CPA Harold Lanham of Harrodsburg, Ky., who began running just three years ago in an effort to fight the flab he felt he’d put on sitting behind his desk preparing tax returns. He’s down from 239 pounds to just 175, thanks to a focus on nutrition and a strict regimen of running 20 to 40 miles a week. “Where once I ran to keep my weight down, now I keep my weight down so I can run,” he says.

Squeezing running in with tax season and also training for Boston makes for a busy March, but Lanham’s plan is to start each day at 4 a.m. and to count on the support of his two partners, one of whom is his son. “It’s every runner’s dream to qualify, to run and to finish the Boston Marathon,” he says, “and it forces me to get my priorities straight.”

Also hoping to qualify is CPA Angela Tortorice of Dallas, who’s already a record-holder of sorts. In October 2005, when she crossed the finish line of a race in Portland, Maine, she accomplished her personal goal of finishing 50 marathons—one in each state of the union.

—Cheryl Rosen