Vikette mat coaches ready to run Des Moines Marathon

By Jeff Holmes

VINTON — An insurance agent and a church pastor. A guy battling a sore hip and a cancer survivor. A head coach and one of his assistants.

And two friends who are also a couple of Marathon Men.

Vinton-Shellsburg head girls’ wrestling coach Brandt Corcran and assistant coach Jordan Howell have been training for the last 29 weeks to prepare for Sunday’s Des Moines Marathon. For Corcran it’s a first time attempt at the 26.2 mile race, while for Howell, it will be his third, but his first in nine years.

Howell, the lead pastor at Vertis Church in Urbana, was battling cancer last year during the season, but one day during a work out he resolved to do something.

“The girls were running the hallways and I said, ‘If my cancer is gone, my plan is to register for a race,” he said. “And Brandt asked me where.”

Fast forward to March. Howell was found to be cancer free, and he made the decision.

“Originally I was going to go to Columbus, OH for their race,” he said, “but it would have a logistical nightmare with kids and travel so I thought, ‘Des Moines is the same time frame, before the season starts.”

Turning to Corcran, he added, “I think you were like, ‘I guess that’s what we’re doing.”

“It’s been on my bucket list forever,” Corcran, a 2012 Vinton-Shellsburg grad and cross-country alumnus. “I guess I just needed someone to ask me, just to pull the trigger. Of course the last time I really ran was in high school. I ran a 5K when I was a freshman in college, but nothing since then.”

Howell ran his first marathon in 2016.

“I was 20,” he said. “My dad was on hospice for COPD and that kind of sparked my desire to do something crazy. At first I was going to do a half, but I’m very much of the mindset of why do half of anything?”

He ran another marathon in 2016, then ran a 50k (31 miles) in 2017. Then he retired from running.

“I was like, ‘that was fun while it lasted’ and I hung up the shoes.”

Running a marathon is not something you just do. To run 26.2 miles, you have to train regularly for anywhere from six months to a year to prepare. Months of solitary runs that start small and build up to the point of nearing, but never reaching, that 26.2 mile mark.

“I pulled out my old playbook and used it,” Howell said. “I’m never going to actually win a marathon, It’s just this is how many miles you have…go do it.”

“I found a different plan that runs through my watch, and I have to run at 4:30 in the morning or I won’t,” Corcran said. “Life is too busy.”

Corcran said his longest training run has been 18.5 miles, while Howell said he hit 20, but with the race coming up in less than a week, they have tapered down to the point that they’ll both run a total of dozen miles each this week.

“I’m hoping for a pace that gets me to about a 3:30 (three hours and 30 minutes),” Howell said.

“Originally,” Corcran said, “my goal was just to finish. But I can’t do that; my goal is to break four hours; maybe even a 3:50. But I’m not going be disappointed if I don’t get it.”

The race begins at 8 am Sunday morning. Go to www.desmoinesmarathon.com to find and follow your favorite runner throughout the race.