Father’s Odyssey 75 marathons, 75 consecutive days
At the age of 57, Terry Hitchcock decided to take on the greatest physical challenge of his life–running 75 marathons on 75 consecutive days. As a grieving father who had lost his wife and “soul-mate” to breast cancer, he was running on empty, but wanted to prove there was sustaining power in love. The incredibly determined Hitchcock set out to make a powerful statement about the obstacles faced by single parents everywhere. His decision followed the second-worst moment of his entire life. Earlier, Hitchcock ’67 had lost the mother of his three children. Nearly paralyzed by wracking grief, he’d somehow managed to get through Sue’s funeral without falling apart. On a blustery morning in 1984, he finally found the strength to return to his job in downtown Minneapolis, where he worked as a corporate officer for a large U.S. credit-card manufacturer. Hitchcock had three kids to raise on his own and needed the income from this job in order to do it. As soon as he walked into the corporate offices of his employer, he received another brutal shock: his position at the company had been eliminated during his two-month (board-approved) absence. Stunned and incredulous, the dazed Hitchcock staggered home through a cloud of whirling snow. He was alone in the world…he had three kids to bring up…and now he also was unemployed only a couple days after Sue’s funeral. “I sat on the floor in my bedroom and cried,” Hitchcock recalled. “I’d been raised to be a provider, and now I was suddenly out of work. My wife had been taken, my income had been taken and I realized that I would have to start again.” And that’s exactly what he did. The next morning, he called an attorney for advice. Armed with a fistful of arguments from the lawyer and having a law degree himself, Hitchcock went back to his company and cut a deal: he wouldn’t sue for “wrongful termination,” provided the credit-card maker paid him his salary for another year. BGSU Magazine 3