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Pleasant Garden's Marjorie Gullick raised money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training to gain entry into Monday's Boston Marathon.

But make no mistake, she's running the 26.2 miles of the world's most famous marathon in honor of Jimmy Garrett, 70, a Pleasant Garden resident and longtime family friend who has stage IV metastatic melanoma.

Gullick, 20, a sophomore at Harvard and an all-conference runner and team captain during her days at Southeast Guilford High School, raised just more than $3,300 for cancer research in honor of Garrett. Jimmy and his wife, Jennie, often took care of Marjorie and her older sister, Eva Glenn, when the girls were young. The girls are the daughters of Guy Gullick, an international pilot for US Airways, and Lynn Gullick, an attorney.

"I want to cross the finish line. That's my goal," Marjorie Gullick says. "I want to do this for Daddy Jimmy. I want him to know how much I care about him and how much his relationship means to me. ...

"Even in these practice runs, running for someone gives you a spring to your step when you just don't feel like you can go anymore," Gullick says. "On my training runs, I felt so much of an emotional connection, about how much work is going into this and how fulfilling it will be to cross the finish line."

Gullick says she vividly remembers many afternoon hours spent with the Garretts. Jimmy, the son of a tenant farmer, and Jennie, as they had done with their own two children, would teach the Gullick girls about tending a garden and about canning and freezing what the land had yielded. (Jennie says she didn't have to provide the girls sandwiches; instead, "they were raised on beans and taters in Miss Jennie's house.") Marjorie took her first steps on the Garretts' porch, Jennie says, and the sisters got some spiritual grounding, too.

"They were with us in Sunday school, camps, Bible school," Jennie Garrett says. "Whatever we did, they did."

Gullick adds of the Garretts: "Miss Jennie and Daddy Jimmy taught me a lot that I know now. ... He's not the most vocal figure, but he is steadfast and caring and taught me a lot through that."

Gullick, meanwhile, is building a fascinating resume at Harvard as she prepares herself to attend medical school. Gullick is majoring in religion, but she is also studying organismic and evolutionary biology. She's also the sports editor of the school newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.

And she's closing in on one more achievement, with the hours of running and training in an already busy life putting her in position to cross the finish line on Boylston Street and honor Jimmy Garrett.

"It's been amazing and inspiring, the people who have responded to my fundraising emails and fundraising letters," Gullick says. "I was in Greece last summer for an internship, and my boss and one of my co-workers donated. The president of one of the social clubs I'm involved in here donated. Friends from home who I haven't talked to in years donated. Friends who know Jimmy and Jennie Garrett donated. The outpouring of love and care is so motivational when you go out and run and face the prospect of pushing yourself through 26.2."

26.2 for 343

Greensboro runner and firefighter Kevin Preston plans to run the New York City Marathon in November in honor of the 343 firefighters who died Sept. 11, 2001.

Preston will be raising money for the Leary Firefighters Foundation's Team LFF. Preston visited New York City about two months after the tragedy.

"We spent time at Ground Zero and with firefighters throughout the city," he writes. "The firefighters we met and our experiences confirmed for us just how amazing the brotherhood is."

Read more about Preston's plans at the Running Shorts blog.

We've hit the TRAILS

Researchers at Wake Forest, led by Dr. Stephen Messier, are using a $600,000 grant from the U.S. Army to try to determine the difference between runners who become injured and those who stay injury-free. The Runners and Injury Longitudinal Study, or TRAILS, is considering biomechanical, behavioral and physiological risk factors for injury.

According to the university, running injuries are important to the U.S. Army because medical disability discharge rates have increased more than 600 percent in 25 years. Many of those discharges are caused by knee pain and other running-related injuries.

So here's where I come in, as one of 180 runners, mostly from our area, who are taking part. I've made two visits to Winston-Salem for tests and screening and will be part of the study over the next several months.

Read about my experience as a lab rat at the Running Shorts blog.

Notable

RUN 4 HAITI: The team of high school girls who recently ran from Greensboro to Atlanta raised $8,500 for Lumiere Medical Ministries, event organizer Taylor Rhodes says.

LEARNING AT LINDLEY: Lindley Elementary School students will run Friday and learn about Olympic hero Wilma Rudolph.

Students in each class will have about 15 minutes to run, or walk, around the school track as many times they can. Students are being asked to identify 10 sponsors to help raise money toward improvements in the Lindley auditorium.

The fun run ties into a "One School, One Book" event at Lindley during the week. Students will discuss "Wilma Unlimited," Kathleen Krull's story of how the Olympian overcame incredible obstacles to become the fastest woman in the world. Each child will receive a copy of the book.

RACE DAYS: New to the Race Days calendar and featured on the blog are information and links to these events:

• The Gillies' Rock 'N Run 5K and Mile Walk-Run on Saturday in Summerfield.

• The St. Pius X Catholic School's Spring Sprint on May 14.

• The Greensboro Children's Museum's Running of the Green on May 21.

• Ladies Night Out 5K in Winston-Salem on July 30.

Contact Eddie Wooten at 373-7093 or eddie.wooten@news-record.com