Why I ran 50.

My late wife, Gwen, and I ran our first marathon together in New York in 2010, a year after she had surgery for a brain tumor. We ran eight more together after that. She was there for every crazy thing I did, from Nathan's to donut races.

In 2018 she was diagnosed with a rare form of lung cancer, and that summer she passed away.

After she passed, I started the Gweneviere Mann Foundation in her memory, to fund early detection for brain tumors and lung cancers. The goal is simple: more people get screened sooner.

In November I lined up at the New York City Marathon and didn't stop until I had run a marathon in all 50 states. A year later I finished where it started, in New York. Every one of the 50 was for the foundation.

I wrote about Gwen and the 50 states in a chapter of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Running for Good, co-authored by Dean Karnazes. On the last marathon of the year, in Virginia, I finally got to run a few miles with Dean.

Support the foundation See all 50 races