Carl DeLand, Dan VandenHeede and Brian Ellerbrook all trained and competed together in the Chicago Marathon.

DeLand is the assistant police chief in Benton Township, while VandenHeede teaches high school in Dowagiac and Ellerbrook is a Dowagiac Union High School graduate and police officer.

The trio all trained together with the idea of running the Chicago Marathon in order to qualify for either the New York or Boston marathons.

DeLand and VandenHeede both qualified for the New York marathon next November, as well as the Boston Marathon. DeLand has now qualified twice for Boston, while this is the third time for VandenHeede.

Ellerbrook qualified for the Boston Marathon.

All three needed to run under 3 hours and 10 minutes to reach their qualifying marks. Since Ellerbrook is younger, he needed to run an even faster time to qualify for New York.

Ellerbrook ran a 3:06:49 for 1,169 overall place at Chicago, while DeLand was 1,129 overall with a time of 3:06:14 and VandenHeede ran a time of 3:05:34 for a 1,085th overall place.  There were 33,687 finishers out of over 35,000 starters.

“We stayed together through the first half, as planned, to help pace ourselves and then got separated a bit during the second half as we each set our own pace,” VandenHeede noted.
Jodie VandenHeede, also a teacher at Dowagiac, also competed in the Chicago Marathon and finished in 4:49:56. It was her second marathon.

VandenHeede and DeLand ran cross country together in high school and graduated from Niles in 1986.

The pair met Ellerbrook at some road races throughout the years and began training together over the previous summer.