Californian returns home each November to run race to please his mother

How far would you travel to delight your mother?

Perhaps not as far as Walter Bullock is willing to go.

Bullock, a former Richmonder, travels roughly 6,000 miles each November to bring a smile to his 73-year-old mother’s face. Some of those miles are easier than others. The journey always includes participation in the 26.2-mile SunTrust Richmond Marathon.

“My mother has been a spectator [at the Richmond Marathon] for a long time—maybe 20 years,” said Bullock, a 51-year-old firefighter at Sacramento International Airport.

“She always used to watch it in person or follow it on TV, and she’d always tell me how exciting she thought it was.”

Dora Bullock told her son something else as well.

“She said she didn’t know anyone who’d actually run the race. That’s when I got the idea of flying back to Richmond every year to run. I thought she might enjoy it.”

She does. Bullock said his mother “is very proud” of his participation in the 31-year-old event. “She’s all for it. She thinks it’s a great idea. She and my dad are always there at the start to see me off, and they’re always there at the finish to meet me.”

Well, almost always. Bullock ran in Richmond for the first time in 2004 and has not missed the marathon since. He said his mother always warns him to be careful. “But one year, not too long ago, she was taking pictures and she slipped and fell and bruised her knee pretty badly. They put her in a soft cast. So I guess you could say that sometimes the race is harder on her than it is on me.”

Bullock, a 1975 graduate of John Marshall High School, has a 23-year career in the Air Force to thank for his involvement in distance running. He served primarily as a loadmaster on a C-141 cargo aircraft. His duties carried him to every continent—Antarctica included—and to the Middle East during Operation Desert Storm. Bullock logged more than 7,200 hours aloft and frequently crossed multiple time zones in the time it takes most mortals to complete a marathon.

He turned to distance running, he said, while searching for a remedy for jet lag.

“I can almost guarantee: If you go out for a nice run, you’ll be able to get good, quality rest,” no matter the circumstances.

Bullock said he has run on every continent except one.

“Antarctica,” he said. “I didn’t run there. We were on the ground for only two hours. We landed on 15 feet of ice. If you stay too long, the aircraft”—which when fully loaded weighs approximately 323,000 pounds—“will actually start to sink.”

In addition, he said, “it was cold. Fifty degrees below zero—a bit too chilly for a run.”

Saturday’s marathon will be Bullock’s eighth this year and 36th overall. His goal, he said, is 50. More persistent than intense, he always aims to break four hours but doesn’t always succeed. He described himself as a social runner who enjoys the camaraderie more than the competition. He’ll be easy to identify on Saturday: He’ll be the runner wearing a large handprinted name tag—“Walt”—over his entry bib.

Bullock’s return to Richmond is in many ways a sentimental journey. He said the seed that would eventually blossom into an almost-quarter-century career in the Air Force was planted when his father, Burnell, took him to explore Byrd Airport as a young boy. Visitors in those days were permitted to watch arriving and departing aircraft from a vantage point at the edge of the tarmac.

“That’s where I saw my first jet.” Bullock said. “I can still remember it. I watched it take off and I thought, ‘Oh, man. I have got to do that.’”

Contact Vic Dorr Jr. at (804) 649-6442 or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

- Republished from inRich.com

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