Diamond Rio’s Jimmy Olander celebrating his finish at the 2007 Country Music Marathon and 1/2 Marathon.
Jimmy represented Team Rio 2007 Presented by Arby’s as a Celebrity Running Captain. He completed the half in 1:56:49… take a bite out of that! The Team raised $120,000.00 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, the preimier mentoring agency. Photo by Action Sports International, asiphoto.com April 27, 2009 — Some of the key streets in the heart of Nashville were closed on Saturday morning for the tenth annual Country Music Marathon & Half Marathon as more than 31,000 runners and walkers — including members of the country music community — hit the streets in a hot, sweaty mass. Diamond Rio’s Team Rio and Tim McGraw’s Team McGraw fielded loads of participants to raise money for charity. Diamond Rio vocalist Marty Roe and guitarist Jimmy Olander were among 160 members of their team, which raised more than $79,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee, according to the team site. Marty ran the 13.1-mile half-marathon course in 2 hours, 20 minutes, The Tennessean reported, while Jimmy completed it in 2 hours, 10 minutes. When it was all over, Billy Currington performed an evening post-marathon concert at the Sommet Center, the annual home for the Country Music Association Awards. Plenty of runners were emotional over their achievements, and Billy had his own cause for sentimentality. Playing the Sommet was a full-circle personal event. “Most people don’t know I used to pour concrete in Nashville for Metro Ready Mix, and I was a part of building the arena,” he told The Tennessean. “We poured all the concrete in that place from the very beginning to the very end. It took us like two or three years, so I have a lot of memories of that place.” “Every day,” he continued, “I always used to think, ‘One day I’m going to be playing this place.’ That’s what I was born to do. It’s many, many, many years later, but here we are.”
With sore feet, chafed thighs and very grateful hearts.