As thousands of runners bolt from the starting line of the Falmouth Road Race in Woods Hole on August 20, one entrant will simultaneously run the 7.1 miles from a prison where he is incarcerated in Florida.
Jim Deupree, a 59-year-old runner who is serving a sentence for a 1990 bank robbery at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida, is officially entered in this year’s road race even though he will not run the world-renowned course, race co-director Richard A. Sherman said.
In a letter Mr. Deupree wrote to the Falmouth Road Race directors requesting a race number, he said he considers himself to be a “prison runner” who has completed major races around the country by running the same distances within the confines of prison.
Although Mr. Deupree contacted the Falmouth Road Race Committee after the registration deadline and could not pay the entry fee, Mr. Sherman said the organization made an exception for Mr. Deupree and granted him an official entry number. His race time will be integrated into the results of the other 9,000 race participants, Mr. Sherman said.
“We’re going to support and encourage him to improve himself so that maybe he’ll be here in person next year,” Mr. Sherman said.
50 Miles A Week
Mr. Deupree said he has been running for the past 17 years, the last seven of which have been inside the prison walls. In the last two years, Mr. Deupree has been running the road race in memory of Dr. George Sheehan, a former medical editor for Runner’s World magazine who died from prostate cancer in November 1993. Dr. Sheehan sent running shoes to Mr. Deupree while he was in prison, which has allowed him to run 50 miles a week, he said. The most recent races he has completed while in prison include the Big Sur Marathon in Carmel, California, the Bolder Boulder 10K in Boulder, Colorado, and the Rockland Half Marathon in Orangeburg, New York.
Mr. Deupree said he will run the Falmouth Road Race through a program he has created called “Making Strides Against Cancer.” He said he hopes that by “proxy running” the road race in Florida, he can raise money for the American Cancer Society through donations and pledges.
“I want to use my unique running project here inside prison to celebrate the strides that are being made in the fight against cancer and to raise money to continue the fight,” Mr. Deupree said in his letter.