These Lawyers Ran the NYC Marathon at the Ages of 8 and 9
About 75 children ran the New York City Marathon in the early years before the minimum age was set at 16 in 1981, then raised again to 18 in 1988.
Two of them are now lawyers. The New York Times interviewed them and learned that neither regrets his childhood experiences.
One of them is Wesley Paul, who first ran the New York City Marathon in 1977 at the age of 8. He was the youngest person to run the marathon, ever. Now he is a partner at the law firm Michelman & Robinson, and has only a half hour a day to devote to running—and he does it on the treadmill.
The other lawyer is Scott Black, a senior trial lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission. “I wouldn’t do anything differently,” Black told the Times. “I find that running has defined me as a person; a lot of my self-esteem has come from it. I don’t regret anything.”
Black quit running when he developed a stress fracture in his hip in 1991. Paul developed tendinitis from running at the age of 14 and fractured a knee at 15 when a car hit him while he was running.
Paul told the Times said he trained with his father growing up in Missouri. “I was in a place where there wasn’t anything to do,” Paul told the Times. “No cable, Nintendo, Wii. It was either go out with him, or that’s it.”
