As Ryan Speir ‘13 looked to the clock at the finish line of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 8, he saw what many runners can only dream of: a time of 2:29:16. Speir finished 56th overall, 50th in the men’s division and second in his 22-24 age bracket, all while competing in his first marathon ever.

“My sister was looking up the results and I was really surprised because I wasn’t expecting to finish so high,” Speir said. “My goal was to finish in under 2:30 so placing top 50 was really just icing on top of the cake for the whole experience.”

A walk-on cross country runner at the Naval Academy, Speir trained all summer with the Georgetown Running Club (GRC) following college graduation, he said. While many runners train for years before their first marathon, Speir had only a few months.

“I normally do not endorse athletes right out of college running a marathon,” GRC coach Jerry Alexander said. “It takes years of high mileage to be properly prepared for the marathon, and we normally have athletes coming out of college make the transition to the marathon gradually, over the course of two or three years. But in Ryan’s case, we accelerated the process because of his impending flight school commitment. Ryan did a few weeks of high mileage, got in a solid half marathon as a tune up, and off he went. It wasn’t ideal, but we made the most of the time we had to get him ready.”

Speir ran cross country at LT for all four years but was only on the state team for his junior and senior seasons, frosh-soph coach Tom Stukel said.

“[Head varsity coach Mike] Danner tells his story every year because if you work hard, it doesn’t matter where you start,” Stukel said. “He started off in one of the lowest groups and was a chubby kid but he continued to change and become better. Over the four years he changed his mindset and himself as a runner and you could tell he was going to be successful.”

Success for Speir has not been limited to cross country. His senior season, he was awarded with First Team Academic All American award and now has goals of becoming a pilot. He will report to Pensacola, Fla., on Dec. 15 for flight school, a commitment that includes approximately two years of training and five years of service to follow.

“If everything goes the way I want it to, I will fly P-8A Poseidon which is a reconnaissance airplane that hunts down submarines for the Navy,” Speir said. “After I get assigned a platform I’ll have the commitment but ideally I’ll be able to continue to run and maybe somewhere down the line, depending on my schedule and Naval deployments, I’d like to give the marathon another shot.”

Another future goal of Speir’s is to compete in the World Military Games and possibly the Olympic Trials, he said. Organized by the International Military Sports Council (CISM), the World Military Games bring together athletes from 136 different countries to compete in annual championships for 30 different sports.

“Our other military athlete has competed in the World Military Games several times, and Ryan is on that level,” Alexander said. “GRC had four athletes compete in the 2016 Olympic Trials Marathon, two men and two women. The qualifying standard for the Olympic Trials is difficult to attain [2:19], but if Ryan can continue to progress, he will certainly have a shot at it.”