Clinton dentist finishes 100-mile race

By Taylor McKay Hathorn

Dr. David Parks was a toddler when his family moved to Clinton for his dad to open Mississippi Discount Drugs, and he made the Jackson suburb his long-term home, attending the Clinton Public Schools before majoring in biology at Mississippi College.

Dr. David Parks (right) is pictured with his friend and race pacer Ben McDonald

“I grew up at First Baptist Clinton,” Parks said of his decision to attend the state’s flagship Baptist college. “I wanted to go to a Baptist college, so I looked at Samford and MC and Baylor. I was actually going to go to Samford, but I changed my mind two weeks before school started my freshman year.”

The last-minute decision ended up being a positive one for Parks, who always thought that he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a pharmacist. He realized in college that he wanted to pursue other dreams, and his fellow Clinton native Dr. Ryan Tracy, who was a dental student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center at the time, encouraged him to look into dental school.

“I went and watched some dentists work,” Parks recalled. “It looked like they were playing with toys – breaking things down and building things up. It made it an easy decision at that point.”

After finishing dental school, Parks returned to Clinton to open Parks Family Dentistry in 2001, but his dental-community connections would soon impact more than just his professional life, as Parks encountered fellow dentist Dr. David Henry in Sunday School. Henry had taken up running, which had been a long-forgotten hobby for Parks, who ran cross-country while at Clinton High School.

“I asked him if I could run, too, and he said sure,” Parks said of his early forays back to the track. “We trained for a half marathon first, which was tough, and then, several months later, we ran our first marathon.”

The 26.2-mile race was a feat for Parks, who said that up until he began running with Henry, he ran maybe twenty times a year. However, the idea of running even longer races began to intrigue him.

“We started reading about longer races, called ultra-marathons,” Parks remarked. “I thought it sounded kinda crazy. I didn’t know that anybody should be running those.”

100-mile Rocky Raccoon 100 Endurance Trail Run in Texas

Even with his misgivings about those protracted races, Parks kept reading about ultra-marathons, and, eventually, he read that one would be taking place in Georgia, near where his aunt and uncle made their home.

“My uncle told me to come over and try it out – and he told me if I decided to quit, he would come pick me up,” Parks said.

His uncle’s offer was proved unnecessary, as Parks and Henry finished the race.

“We made it the whole way. It wasn’t super fast, but we made it to the end,” he said of his first ultra-marathon experience. Parks said the aftermath of the race was grueling, as he remembers being so sore that he walked backwards down the stairs at his aunt’s and uncle’s house, because it hurt less.

The memory of the pain faded, however, and, eventually, Parks set his sights on the Rocky Raccoon 100 Endurance Trail Run, a one-hundred-mile race in Texas. Despite his wife Kacy’s misgivings, Parks registered for the race – nearly four times longer than a traditional marathon – and recruited his friend Ben McDonald to serve as his pacer. McDonald, who works at Fleet Feet and is a childhood friend of Parks’, would be tasked with giving Parks disposable bags loaded with gels and food every few miles, and, at mile sixty, McDonald would join the race with him.

By the time McDonald joined in, Parks acknowledged that he was “mostly walking” laps around Huntsville State Park, the site of the race. Twenty-nine hours and twelve minutes after he began the Rocky Raccoon, Parks crossed the finish line, having only taken a smattering of five-minute breaks throughout the race, and never sitting down during any of them.
“There was no sleeping,” Parks said of his day-long journey. “Some people take naps during the night, and I might should have done that…but I was afraid I wouldn’t want to get back on the trail.”

Ultimately, his endurance paid off, as Parks said that finishing was its own reward.

“The last twenty to thirty minutes, I wasn’t speaking at all… I was just trying to make it. That last mile, you know you’re close, and you get excited.”

Parks says the Rocky Raccoon wasn’t just a bucket list item – he doesn’t think his ultra-marathon journey is over.

“Despite what my wife would like for me to do, I’ll attempt another one at some point,” Parks concluded, with a laugh.