So Many Miles, So Many Memories

Jim and Mary Jean Last have been fixtures of Fernandina Beach’s running community ever since there was one

By Ed Hardee

For decades, running has been an important part of life for Jim and Mary Jean Last. And they’ve been an important part of Fernandina Beach’s running community.

Kathy Terwilliger, Eugenia Rivera and Jo Baker with Mary Jean and Jim. They met up at the Lasts' house for a run and bike ride.

As the years have passed, runners, and races, and even local running clubs, have come and gone. But friends still meet at the Lasts’ house several times a week for a run through Fort Clinch or the neighborhoods, as they’ve done for more than two decades. “The Lasts’ house has been kind of a focal point of the community for running,” Jim observes.

So many miles. So many memories.

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For Jim, who’s 60 now, those memories of running go back to P.E. class in high school -- “I was naturally good at it.” He kept at it, and other sports, through college and beyond. Then came Frank Shorter’s Olympic Marathon victory in 1972, and “the running craze hit.” Jim, already a runner, kicked it up a notch. And in 1975, he moved to Fernandina Beach.

For Mary Jean, who has asthma, a running career didn’t come so naturally – in fact, it had a traumatic start. “I was working in Jacksonville in 1974, and one day I totaled my car,” she recalls. Something very good came of that bad day; to ease the stress afterward, she ran a mile on the beach. “And then I said – ‘Wow! I ran a mile!’”

By the late ‘70s, Fernandina Beach had its own running club. And though their lives were on separate paths, Jim and Mary Jean were trying their first races.

Jim’s was the inaugural River Run in 1978, and after that, “anywhere there was a race, I’d go do it.” And he was fast, setting PRs of 17:44 in the 5K, 36:54 in the 10K and 57:47 in the River Run. Mary Jean’s first was the “Run for Equality” in 1979, a 5K in support of women’s rights. She laughs now when she remembers her time – 39:13.

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By the early 1980s Jim was reaching his peak as a runner, but he was also battling injuries, and faced several surgeries for problems unrelated to running.

“Age 35 was my turning point,” he says. He changed jobs, divorced – and called Mary Jean for a “tennis date.” Two years later, in 1983, they were married.

“On the day of the Run for the Pies!” Jim exclaims. “Her mom wanted a bigger wedding than Mary Jean did, so Mary Jean said, “Let’s just go up to Georgia and get married.” They did, then headed for Jacksonville to run the 5K.

“Later that night we went to the running club party, but we couldn’t tell anybody because we didn’t want her parents to hear it from anybody else,” Jim remembers.

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They would come to be not only life partners, but running partners, too. Jim offered encouragement and advice, and as Mary Jean’s training miles increased, she became a competitive runner. But after running or tennis, Jim says, “I would notice that my hip was aching.”

Mary Jean finishes one of her six Jacksonville Marathons.

When he reached his early 40s, a doctor told him to quit running, but not tennis. Mary Jean thought that advice seemed backwards. “She told me, you can run easy, but not very far. We’d start having four-mile fun runs. Sometimes we’d meet with other runners at the Recreation Center.”

In 1985, the starting point shifted to the Lasts’ new house, which was then across from the Woman’s Club. Thus began the group runs that continue to this day.

“It was close to the beach, close to Fort Clinch,” Jim says. After the local running club eventually disbanded, “people would just show up at our house to run, four or five times a week.”

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So many miles. So many … marathons.

Jim’s sole marathon was in Gainesville in the late ‘70s, and it aggravated a foot problem that limited him to half-marathons thereafter. But he finished in 3 hours, 32 minutes.

Mary Jean has about 10 to her credit – it’s hard to keep count. Boston, twice – “It’s a thrill,” she says. Jacksonville, six times; in 1992, she ran it in 3:43:55. The Marine Corps in Washington, where she passed a fellow runner she recognized. “I came up on this little motorcade, and I thought, ‘This is neat.’ It was Al Gore.”

Her hardest marathon? Probably Grandfather Mountain, billed as America’s toughest. Starting in Boone, N.C., it boasts a 1,000-foot net elevation gain, and most of the race is uphill. She finished in 4:11 and took home an age group plaque.

And then there’s the marathon that got away – the 100th running of Boston, in 1996. In the world of running, that would be the Super Bowl, seventh game of the Series and NBA championship, rolled into one.

“Mary Jean got in the best shape of her life,” says Jim. She qualified and was ready to go, when six weeks before the big day…

“Our Siamese cat got stuck on our back patio roof. She got the ladder out and went up after the cat.”

The ladder gave way.

Mary Jean with Phoenix the Cat: no hard feelings.

The last thing Mary Jean can recall is a desperate effort to grab onto the roof. Thankfully, she doesn’t remember the eight-foot fall onto the concrete below that knocked her unconscious, injured her hip and left her unable to run.

“The week before Boston, she tried to run four miles, and it nearly killed her,” Jim says. “We knew she just couldn’t run 26. Then the day before the race, she’s begging me to drive her up there. I refused to do it. No way.”

A neighbor who did go brought back her race bib, sort of a consolation prize. And the cat? It got down on its own.

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So many miles. So many… plaques!

More than 60 of them, testimony to Mary Jean’s racing talent. Also dozens of trophies and cut-glass mugs, and even a miniature cannon. Several of the plaques are from the Jacksonville Grand Prix, which comprises about 15 races annually. Her PRs include a 68:58 finish in the 1994 River Run, a 5K of 20:56, and 43:42 in the 1990 Mandarin 10K.

One plaque with special meaning to Mary Jean is from the Jacksonville Track Club. The JTC named her outstanding women’s masters distance runner for 1999-2000.

“I’ve found a quote or two that keep me going,” says Mary Jean, who’s 56. “One of them is: ‘The race does not go to the swiftest, but to the one who keeps running.’

“I’ve hung in there,” she says, despite nagging injuries that have slowed her in recent years and even forced some temporary layoffs. “There’s a lot to be said for persistence.”

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The Lasts are modest folk; those aforementioned 60-plus plaques are stashed in the attic, filling two suitcases, not displayed around the house. So it’s intriguing that the couple once did a 5K at a nudist camp.

Jim and Mary Jean with a memorable T-shirt.

“I saw the T-shirt one year, and I said, ‘We have to do this race’” – once they learned that it was clothing-optional, says Mary Jean. It was the Dare to Go Bare, staged annually at a nudist resort near Tampa.

In deference to their hosts, “we didn’t wear socks,” says Jim. “Just shorts and shoes. Mary Jean wore a jogging bra.”

They modestly lined up in the back of the pack, then learned that a Tampa Tribune photographer would be shooting pictures from – where else? – behind.

They moved to the front.

Shortly into the event, “Mary Jean realizes she’s winning the women’s race,” Jim says. “She remembered the photographer, and she could see the headline if she won: ‘Last is first.’ Whenever Mary Jean won a race, the newspaper headline would say, ‘Last is first.’

“She decided she didn’t want to be in the Tampa Tribune for winning the nude run, so she stopped” until others took the lead.

They still got their T-shirts – definite conversation pieces among their running friends.

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Jim and Mary Jean were runners before running was “cool,” before running shoes came in hundreds of sizes and styles, before runners were a familiar sight along the sidewalks and byways of America.

For a runner, what is the biggest difference between then and now?

The Lasts agree that the answer is: “Dogs.”

In those days, leash laws weren’t enforced or didn’t exist. And, “People didn’t run much back then,” Jim says. “Dogs react to things that are different, and runners were different.

“Dogs would go berserk! They’d come charging out like crazed killers. I’d have dogs come after me at least once per run.”

And crazed reactions weren’t restricted to canines. “I’d hear comments from guys in cars,” Mary Jean says. “A guy might yell something obscene from out the car window.”

Sadly, bad behavior in both dogs and people hasn’t disappeared, but at least it’s less frequent. Says Mary Jean, “Runners are more accepted now.”

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So many miles… but someday, they must come to an end. About seven years ago, Jim Last reached the day that many runners, particularly older ones, dread. The day he knew he had to stop running.

Jim and Mary Jean on a hiking vacation at Lake Lure, N.C., in 1982.

“I got to where doing easy runs was irritating my hip enough that I had trouble sleeping,” he says. “I always knew that would be the time I’d have to quit. The pain wasn’t going to stop me, but you have to be able to sleep.”

Having to stop was “an absolute shock,” Jim says. He was addicted to the psychological benefits of running, as well as the physical. The social outlet, running and talking with friends. Being able to eat anything he wanted.

“It was rough,” he says, “but I didn’t have any choice.” Several months later, he had successful hip replacement surgery.

“I ran for 12 years after they told me I couldn’t run any more,” Jim says. “After 12 years, they were right.”

He still keeps active – bikes and stationary bikes, kayaking, walking, and even Friday night Putt-Putt tournaments with Mary Jean during the summer. And the social benefits of running remain, because he still goes to races with his wife. “And I get to see all my running buddies.”

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As it turns out, those newspaper headlines were right. The Lasts are still first – to each other.

“You see so many married couples that don’t have much in common,” Jim reflects. “I’ve always liked sports, and I know how lucky I am that my best friend wants to do what I want to do. When she was slow, doing 10-minute miles, I would train with her a lot. I helped her become a better runner.”

Mary Jean’s response: “That’s for sure.”

Orthotics have helped keep her injuries in check, and she’s feeling upbeat about her running these days. “I’ve been told by a doctor that the reason I’m in as good a shape as I am with my breathing is my running,” she says, “and I will keep the benefits for the rest of my life.”

So the thrice-weekly runs from the Lasts’ house on Alachua Street will continue, with room for any running friends who drop by. Bicyclists are welcome, too.

And the Lasts have a new goal. When they reach retirement, they’d like to travel the country so Mary Jean can get race T-shirts from all 50 states, with Jim cheering her on.

Which will mean, of course…

So many more miles.

And so many new memories.