He’d been injured before in his extensive ultrarunning career. He’d taken the lead in a 100-mile race in Idaho once, but as he came down a mountain at 2 a.m., he fell and hit a big rock face first, breaking his nose.
When he finally got to an aid station, they tried packing his nose so he could keep going and he did for another 12 miles, but finally, because of the time he’d lost, officials made him retire.
At another race, he broke a finger.
But the spill on Sugarloaf was the worst.
“I tried jumping on one leg to get down the hill and finding a log to sit,” he said.
His friend and running partner, Gregg Trapp, another accomplished ultrarunner, eventually heard him yell, came back and helped get him to his car.
Corfman said he drove back home to West Chester using cruise control and a gentle touch on the brakes.
He finally got to Christ Hospital in Liberty Township where he was put into a cast. Two days later he said a top orthopedist agreed to take the cast off … with one proviso:
“He said, ‘We can put you in a boot as long as you don’t do anything stupid.’”
As he recalled that conversation, Corfman started to smile: “Well, I’m an ultramarathoner, of course I’m going to do something stupid.”
Nine weeks after the break, he entered the 100-mile Burning River Endurance Run in Cleveland and made it 65 miles before he was sidelined.
A few weeks after that he was in the Swiss Alps for another long race and managed to complete 38 miles before he was forced to quit.
And yet, when he shows you a photo from that day, he’s sitting in a thatch of grass with the famed Matterhorn rising 14,692 feet behind him and equally big smile on his face.
That’s the thing about Corfman. He smiles at circumstances that would make most of the rest of us grimace:
- In July, he ran the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon in Death Valley, California, a challenge known as “the world’s toughest foot race” because temperatures can reach 120 degrees in the shade and the terrain is rugged.
- A few years ago, he ran the Conquer the Wall Endurance Run in West Virginia with Trapp and Ron Ross. The designated race times – 35 or 47 hours – were made even tougher by the weather, he said: “The temperature dropped over night from 50 to 30 degrees, and we had eight inches of snow.”
- He has run endurance races in 40 states and last June ran the Comrades Marathon in South Africa, the world’s oldest and longest ultramarathon, which that day, he said, drew 15,000 South Africans and some 3,000 foreigners.
- His distance running began 29 years ago, and he’s now completed 90 marathons, everything from the U.S. Air Force Marathon and the Blind Pig in Cincinnati to the Boston Marathon.
- He’s run 160 ultramarathons (any race over 26.2 miles).
- This Saturday and Sunday, if he completes the Mohican Trail 100 Mile race in north central Ohio – a race he’s finished numerous times before, including last year’s 30 hours, 49:13 minutes effort – he will become just the 33rd person in the world to ever have run 100, 100-mile races.
- Over the years, he’s completed seven 200-mile races and totaled over 1,000 miles at four different races around the U.S.
As is tradition in the ultrarunning world, most of these races award belt buckles to the finishers.
It’s a custom that dates to the first 100-mile race – the Western States Endurance Race – which was launched 51 years ago in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains and is an offshoot of the old horse race which ran along the same tough route.
Just off the living room of his and wife Julie’s West Chester home, Corfman has more than 100 of his buckles on display. Most of them come from 100-mile races which are his forte.
He ran his first 100 miler – the Mohican – in 2003 in 19 hours and 53.02 seconds.
“I was young and fast and ran very, very well that day,” said the now 62-year-old Corfman. “I loved it.”
He quieted for a few seconds as he tried to recall a quote he’d heard:
“I know I’m going to get the wording wrong, but it’s something like this:
“If you want to have an experience, run a mile.
“If you want to push yourself, run a 5K and if you want to push yourself more, run a marathon.
“But if you want to meet God, run a 100 miler!”
Just a number
Although he was an athlete of note at Waynesdale High in Holmes County – he earned 10 varsity letters in wrestling, cross country and track – and had continued running on the side when he got a computer science degree at the University of Akron, Corfman said he was “fading” as a runner by the time he’d moved to Cincinnati from Dayton, where he’d worked for a defense contractor.
He was attending Faith Community United Methodist Church when he said he noticed Julie Shelton, the “young, pretty” organist.
“I’d be the usher on her side of the church, so I could flirt,” he said with a grin.
After they began dating, Julie started running.
“She’d run three miles, so I would want to do four,” Corfman said. “She’d do five, so I wanted to do six. We both built up to seven and then I just kind of took off from there.”
He eventually did marathons – Julie has completed three herself – and then just kept adding miles.
The couple also added two sons.
Today, Philipp is 27 and married to Melinda Glass. An accomplished musician in his own right, he graduated from law school earlier this month, is published in the Cleveland State Law Review and is studying for the bar. He has a position waiting for him in labor law in Cleveland.
Son Erich is 24 and recently graduated from DePaul University with a master’s degree in trombone performance. He has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Milwaukee Symphony.
“They get their intelligence and their musical talent from their mother,” Corfman said with smiling reference to Julie, who’s now the choir director and organist at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in West Chester.
Both boys have said they want to run a marathon with their dad before they turn 30 and there’s no doubt he’ll still be running then.
Corfman said he runs for several reasons:
“First of all, I love it. Running through the forest is awesome.
“I like to push my body to new levels. I used to be faster and longer, but now I’m at an age where I like to push myself to keep the old man out.
“And, truthfully, I’m trying to run from my family’s medical history.”
His mother died of cancer. His father had heart issues and diabetes and his two older siblings have dealt with diabetes.
Corfman recently retired from his IT job in Cincinnati. (His identical twin brother, Dan, is the band director at Gibsonburg High in northwest Ohio.)
While he has several interests to follow – including the volunteer pet therapy work he and the family’s Belgian Malinois rescue, Clara, do at Drake Hospital – Corfman’s recent efforts have been focused on this weekend’s race.
His pal, Greg Trapp – who already is part of the 100 x 100 fraternity with 108 100-milers under his belt buckle – will pace him the entire race. They’ve run some 35 races together in the past.
His friend Bob Engel, who coached him through his first 50-mile ultramarathon , will join him for the final loop at Mohican.
And Gail Lance, his friend since seventh grade, serves as his crew chief and provides race support.
While he admits he’s excited about the weekend, he said he’s tried to keep his feelings “tamped down” in the runners’ world:
“It’s a milestone, but it’s also just a number. Like I said, 32 people already have done it including several good friends of mine. Before I start bragging about it, I just have to look around at any race.”
When he did his 98th in March, alongside him came Ed Ettinghausen who was running his 290th 100-miler.
As he’s worked his way to the threshold of the 100 x 100 club, Corfman said he has been cautious with some of the running challenges he faced.
After this weekend he said he’ll take more risks as he works his way through his bucket list, including completing his 50 states feat and running in several national parks out west.
A final connection
An equally rewarding pursuit has been the therapy work he does each week with Clara.
“Every week we visit people with traumatic brain injuries and the stroke victims,” he said. “That can be tough. Some of them have been there for decades, but Clara has the right temperament.
“For the three years we’ve been going there, we visited this one woman, Diane, who just lay there, immobile and nonverbal . She just stared at the ceiling and cried. We’d go in and try to get her attention …and nothing.
“I finally had an idea and put a chair up beside her bed, right by her head. Clara jumped up on the chair and put her head right there, too.
“And for the first time ever, Diane responded. She turned over and stared at Clara. They had those 10 seconds together.
“When we came back a week later, they told us Diane had passed away.
“We had gotten there just in time. Clara had made a final connection. Being part of something like that is a real joy.”
Corfman also serves the running world as the race director of Cincinnati’s oldest ultramarathon, the Stone Steps 50K, and he’s the pace setter for the Blind Pig each year. And he’s an aid captain at several ultramarathons in the Dayton and Cincinnati areas.
As he continues his running, though, there are times when the euphoria it brings doesn’t fully eclipse everyday reality.
He talked about running the Mohican 100 in the past, then driving back to West Chester and promptly mowing the yard.
After running nearly 30 hours straight and then driving nearly three hours more back home?
“Hey, it needed to be mowed,” he said with a shrug.
Sometimes, as an ultramarathoner, you see God.
Sometimes, you see God’s green earth.
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