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Leo McMillen, hatless in the center of the photo, brought several
friends to Sunday's 5K race in Marion. He's now done a race in
all 120 Kentucky counties.
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See this week's Printed Edition of The Press for Race Results
McMillen runs across Kentucky
Leo McMillen of Lexington has covered the final 3.1 miles of Kentucky.
For the past 14 years, McMillen has been running across the Commonwealth – literally – 5 kilometers at a time. He has used a love of jogging to see the whole state, one county at a time. His trip ended in Marion on Sunday when McMillen ran in the Furry 5K race at the park to benefit the Mary Hall Ruddiman Canine Shelter.
He has a shirt from each race and stories to tell on almost every one of them. McMillen says that nearly ever race has had its own signature or style.
McMillen and several of his friends from Lexington came to the race here Sunday. They heard about it while participating in a 5K a few weeks ago in Ballard County.
He didn’t originally set out to run in all of Kentucky’s counties, but about 14 years ago he started looking at all the places he had run and said to himself, "Why not?"
At 77, the retired director of Streets, Roads and Forestry for the City of Lexington isn't necessarily in a race to win it. He's like most of the thousands of running enthusiasts who lineup in communities every weekend to test their stamina and stay fit. He mostly walks nowadays, at a brisk pace you might say. Leo began running in 1982, and like most others, he has found rewarding fellowship through races.
“When I started looking at the counties I’d run, I kept a map and realized I was pretty close to running in every county so I started keeping track,” McMillen said. “I had everything in eastern Kentucky but didn’t have a lot in western Kentucky.
“A couple of friends of mine run together and we started looking for info on western Kentucky and working on that.”
As far as he knows, he's the first Kentuckian to run organized races in each county in the state.
