INDIANAPOLIS - The Mini Marathon is just two days away. While it attracts tens of thousands of runners and walkers, many of us have never thought about running 13.1 miles. Neither had Sam Kincaid. Then he thought, "What do I have to lose?" A lot, as it turns out.
"No one gives you a hard time or treats you badly. They all respect what it takes to run," he said.
Sam Kincaid is training for his first Mini Marathon. Last year he did the 5K. He was at the back of pack, but it still transformed him.
"It was hard, but there's that feeling once you've done it, you get the encouragement that you did it," he said.
Sam now makes it look effortless. His average pace per mile is 7 minutes 15 seconds.
Even more amazing is how far he's come in the last year and a half.
"Sometimes it's even hard to recognize myself," he said.
In November 2009, he weighed 300 lbs and was on all sorts of medication.
"I was always tired. Depression is easier when you're overweight," he said.
The wake-up call was thinking about his dad, who weighed 450 lbs when he died of an aortic rupture at 62.
"So at 47 I told myself, do the math. Do I want to make it to 62 like my father or can I do something about it?" he said.
Sam began slowly, building speed and distance step by step. With each run it became a little easier. He used social media to stay motivated.
"I would post my runs and the weight loss because it put me out in front of people so they would expect to see if I stayed at it and people would call me on it," he said.
Sam now weighs 175 lbs. He lost 125 in just over a year.
"Everybody jokes, dude, you should have gone on biggest loser. Yeah, I should have," he said.
But Sam is no longer running for weight loss. He's running for time. After the Mini he ran four half marathons last year, finishing the Monumental in 1:32.
"It's the look of the younger guys I'm passing that can't believe someone our age can run that fast," he said.
This year he's on track to do a half marathon a month and two full marathons. Running has changed his life.
"The more races you complete, you start evaluating other things in life other than this and you think maybe those are possible too," he said.
Sam uses his story to help others, often sharing his Facebook picture from before he lost the eight.
Sam plans to run his first marathon in Chicago this October and then run the Las Vegas marathon a month after that.
Watch our special coverage of the mini Saturday morning. It runs three hours beginning at 6:00 am, with the start, the finish, and live reports from along the route. You can also watch on WTHR.com.
