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GREENSBORO — With each stride, Thad McLaurin empties his thoughts onto the trail. His mind drifts — to the kids, the training, and sometimes, to a clear and thoughtless nowhere. Every so often, the sound of his footsteps brings McLaurin his best ideas.

A former fifth-grade teacher, McLaurin started working with an educational publishing company in 1996. When he ran, his mind cleared and problems with research or layout or curriculum found solutions.

But in February, after 13 years with The Education Center, McLaurin was laid off.

“It was a loss, a grieving process of losing that job,” he said. “And then, I found out I couldn’t work in the field for 18 months.”
 

McLaurin had signed a noncompete contract that banned him from working for any of The Education Center’s competitors. He couldn’t work in his field anymore.

At first, he was angry.

But then, “after the numbness wore off,” he had an idea.

It came while working on a blog post.

McLaurin had started Runner-Dude’s Blog in October as a way to keep his running group updated. One afternoon after his layoff, while sitting at his computer, the idea hit him like a second wind.

“It dawned on me,” he said. “Why don’t I do something with this?”

McLaurin started running in college. He had never taken to competitive sports, but with running, things were different. On an open road, he was only competing with himself.

“I was not a good runner. I was back of the midpack,” he said. “But I enjoyed it.”

The 26.2 miles in a marathon — “you can’t forget the 0.2, because that’s the worst” — really appealed to him, and by 1998 he had run the race twice. In October 2001, he traveled to Chicago to take on No. 3.

But the night before the race, he found himself too sick to compete. Nursing what felt like a bad 24-hour bug, McLaurin made his way back to Greensboro.

A few days later, still in pain, he saw a doctor, and just after the New Year, the diagnosis was ulcerative colitis.

The disease causes chronic inflammation inside the intestine and extreme pain, which made running impossible. When he had surgery in June 2002, the pain eased. Medication helped, too.

With a body weakened from illness but another marathon on his mind, he was back on the road a month after surgery.

“He was really, really sick for a while and he struggled to regain his stamina,” said his wife, Mitzi McLaurin. “He was taking walks with me, and he runs. I walk.”

For three months, he walked. Then, he began to run again. And nine months after surgery, he raced in the Country Music Marathon in Nashville.

In 2007 he returned to Chicago to run the race that ulcerative colitis once kept him from. He had to, he said. It was haunting him.

Today, McLaurin is training for marathon No. 11. The exercise keeps his immune system strong and his symptoms at bay. But more than that, he said, it keeps him sane.

“If I don’t go for a run for a while, my wife will tell me, 'Hey, you need to go for a run. Please, go for a run,’” he said.

When McLaurin lost his financial stability, he turned to what had always been a physical and emotional anchor. Walking away from his past in publishing, he’s now dedicated to a career in fitness. In July, he’ll start an intense six-month, 500-hour certification program in personal training and nutrition.

He’s blogging more, too — nearly every day. He writes about new products and training techniques, injury prevention and fitness fads. And the running world is taking notice.

Last week, RunnerDude’s Blog moved from No. 10 to No. 9 on Top 21 Running Sites, an online ranking based on page views. Major fitness companies are asking him to review their products. Brooks Running Shoes is donating a prize for the next contest McLaurin runs on his blog. 

Even a few Olympians are tuning in, following his posts on the microblogging and social networking site, Twitter.

“The first question is 'Why?’” he said.

After just eight months of blogging, McLaurin doesn’t have an answer. But clearly, something is working. As new readers come in, he tries to keep things fresh by pulling ideas from friends and readers.

Other ideas come to him on the trail. Today, running fuels a new career that is in step with his greatest passion.

“It’s crazy,” said Andy Manry, a member of McLaurin’s running group. “It takes a lot of courage to do it. … He’s doing something that he loves.”

McLaurin said he’s somewhat thankful that his old company held onto that noncompete contract. If it hadn’t, he never would have started  this new race, never would have taken the risk.

“In retrospect what I loved (about The Education Center) was gathering information and helping people, and that’s a lot of what I’m doing now with running and fitness,” he said. “...You have to be willing to take a chance and see what will happen.”

Contact Tricia L. Nadolny at 373-7028 or tricia.nadolny@news-record.com