The 25th annual Mike Cody 4 Miler took place on an unseasonably warm and sunny Saturday, February 7. As a show of support for local running celebrity and Burch, Porter & Johnson fixture, attorney Mike Cody, more than 40 Burch, Porter and Johnson attorneys, staff and family participated in the race. See photos of our team at the race here.
The race benefits the Rhodes Track & Field and Cross Country teams and takes you on a tour of the beautiful Rhodes College campus. Mr. Cody and Olympian Dave Wottle were along the course at the start of the second loop to encourage runners. The last ¼ of a mile of the race takes you around the campus track once, then through the finish chute. Many runners were lucky enough to get a high five or words of encouragement from Mike Cody himself as they entered the Rhodes campus track.
Winning the annual Mike Cody 4 Miler is a high honor in the Memphis running community. To commemorate the race’s 25th anniversary year, age group awards were baseball hats signed by 1972 800 meter Olympic Champion Dave Wottle, who also spoke after the race. This year’s fastest male was James Maglasong, with a time of 20:38:80, a 5:09/mile pace. The 2015 fastest female was Kathleen Behnke, with a time of 25:53:40, a 6:28/mile pace. The full list of results can be found here.
Mike Cody started running on the Rhodes (then Southwestern) track in 11th grade, and ran the mile there on scholarship in 1954. While at Southwestern, he ran the mile in 4:23, the half mile in 1:57 and the quarter mile in 48.7 seconds, and later competed in Masters Track and Field Championships. Mr. Cody was inducted in the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1993, the Rhodes College Sports Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Memphis Amateur Sports Hall of Fame in 2011 for Track & Field. He cofounded local running store Breakaway Running in 1981.
Mr. Cody has completed 33 marathons, including 13 Boston Marathons (his marathon personal record is 2:48:06 at the Boston Marathon when he was 45 years old), and he has logged more than 84,000 running miles.