Who Is Steve Turner?

He answered the call. After years enjoying the benefits of the running club, Steve heard Craig Harrington’s plea for volunteers and decided it was time to give something back. Helping out at races was fun, but he felt that he owed more. Now he’s a newcomer on the Board of Directors and wants to hear your ideas for improving the Club.

If Steve’s running experience sounds familiar, it probably reminds you of swapping similar stories with other running friends. He started running when he stopped smoking in 1995. His first race was the John Clay that year, and he couldn’t even finish the course. After that reality check he began running three or four miles every day. By December, when he entered the Mistletoe Run in the Vineyards, he finished under 24 minutes. He was hooked.

After running the Naples Daily News Half Marathon in 1999, he was thirsting to run a full marathon. That goal proved elusive as he kept getting injured from overtraining. He trained with Bill Marshall, Martin Seabold and Chuck Moseley, a fast crowd for a newcomer.

“They made me faster,” he says, “but I couldn’t keep up with them.”

He had to keep reminding himself he wasn’t out to win the training run but to get ready for the race. His first marathon finally came in 2003, at the Country Music Marathon in Nashville, Tennessee, his home state, where he finished in 3:46.

Like other new marathon runners, his thoughts turned to Boston. He had to run 3:35 to qualify, and it wasn’t easy. By time for the Jacksonville marathon in 2005 he had run 3:38, 3:36, and still couldn’t hit the magic number. Three weeks before the Jacksonville marathon he came down with the flu and training came to a near halt. He almost didn’t go.

Discouraged, but with a plane ticket in his hand, he decided to go and watch. The day before the race it was cold and pouring rain. He sat in his motel room watching football most of the day, while three inches of rain saturated the area. It was still raining the next morning and he had almost decided to bag it when he ran into Craig and David Jones. With a little encouragement, he made up his mind to start the race and see what happened.

What happened was a race where everything came together for him, a rare surprise with a finishing time of 3:30. He had qualified for Boston. If you ask Steve about his most memorable race, that’s the story you get. He went on to Boston last April and says he didn’t have a good race but he enjoyed being there.

Steve just turned 55 and moved on to a new age group where he says he’s glad to be rid of Bill and Chuck for a few years. He says he thinks he can squeeze a few more minutes from his PR of 3:30, so that’s one of his goals. His long term goal is just to keep on running as long as he can. He has a serious training schedule when he’s fit, but he’s still fighting those overuse injuries.

Most of his running is alone and early in the morning because his job in the construction industry requires an early start. Steve is the project manager for land development at Fiddler’s Creek here in Naples. He spent many years working at Vero Beach on the east coast of Florida before coming to Naples in 1994.

Married to Stacia and the father of two grown daughters, Steve enjoys spending time with his dogs when he’s not working or running. He bikes but doesn’t swim and has so far resisted the lure of triathlons.

He couldn’t understand why he was chosen for a profile or why anyone would want to read about him. If you’ve gotten this far, maybe you can explain it to him.

Emily Harris