Phil Roberts’ life of perpetual motion had two beginnings: a telephone call to Mount Holly Elementary School that sent the first-grader running home in a race to beat the school bus, and a yellow legal pad from his dad on which his tiny hands logged numbers in neatly columned rows.

The phone call, from Roberts’ mother to the school office, came on February 2, 1970. Roberts’ family lived on West Catawba Avenue, just beyond the cemetery and about a mile from the school – two houses away from where the county drew the line for bus transportation. His baby sister, Penny, was sick, so would someone please get word to the boy to walk home?

“I took off down the road and was trying to beat the bus home. It was something fun to do. I didn’t get to be bussed, so I figured I’d show them, and beat it home,” Roberts said. “I enjoyed it so much that my first nine grades I ran to school and ran home.”

About that time, Roberts’ father gave him some legal pads from work, and the child logged his distance each day – from the house, through the property by the middle school, past the gymnasium, down to his school and home again.

“It started out as rows of numbers. So the first day was a mile, and I wrote a ‘1.’ Then I’d put a ‘2.’ Then I’d add up the total,” he said. “My original log was pages and pages of columns and numbers. I also would write the weather: ‘It is cold.’ Or ‘It’s hot.’ Or ‘It’s 30 degrees.’ It kind of evolved.”

As of mid-June this year, that ‘1’ had become 160,200 miles – each distance carefully recorded – enough for Roberts, 52, to have run from Mount Holly Elementary to San Diego, Calif., and back 34 times. His milestones along the way – high school records and college records that still stand – have earned him a spot in the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame.

“I’m very honored. I’ve been a runner for a long time, in high school and college, but it’s an honor for the town to recognize it,” Roberts said from him home in Greenville, Tenn., where he’s dominating the State of Franklin Track Club’s 50-54 age group.

On June 13, he won a 5K race on a rolling, hilly course by 3 minutes. In May, he was first among 321 competitors in 13 age groups and won by 35 seconds. The second-place guy was a teenager.

Roberts’ scampering to and from Mount Holly Elementary gave him a chance to notice details of his neighborhood.

“As I got older, like third grade, I would run more on weekends. I would see trails off of roads where people would go with their motorcycles or 4-wheelers and I’d run them,” he said. “In sixth grade, I had to run through the junior high to get to the elementary school, and one day someone asked me if I was going to run track.

“I didn’t know what it was, so I looked it up in the encyclopedia. I went out in seventh grade and found out I was good at running, and I’ve been running all along. I got better and faster and stronger at it. It led to a junior high championship in the half-mile and mile.”

Roberts said he ran a competitive 4:30 mile as a high school sophomore, but his best time was 4:26.

Word got to college scouts, and he said 72 colleges sought his attendance. “It was the way I ran,” he said. “Over the years, my thing was to be a front-runner, pushing the pace. And I would do that against people who had way better times and accolades, but it didn’t matter. I made them prove it. College coaches looked at me as a catalyst for their team … someone who’s going to make others push, too.”

Because it was close to home and family, Roberts chose High Point College (now High Point University), but he switched to Western Carolina after one year. After his red-shirt season, he ran everything from the half-mile to 10,000 meters. His legal-pad log book was showing about 105 miles per week.

Western Carolina still lists him as the record holder for 1,500 meters (1986, 3:55.10); 3,000 meters (1985, 8:19.59); 2 miles (1985, 8:59); 3 miles (1986, 13:50.80); and 200-meter Steeple (1985, 5:55.70).

He graduated in 1986 with a degree in physical education, then stayed for graduated courses and worked as an assistant track coach for five years.

He met his wife, Kris, at Western in 1988 and they married in 1989. She earned a Master’s in psychology, and her job took them to their current home in Tennessee in 1991, where she is the director of the crisis consultation team for the Department of Intellectual Disability Services for the state.

The Roberts have four children – three boys and a girl – born two years apart. The oldest is 22 now and pursuing an MBA, one is a student at East Tennessee State, one is a recent high school graduate and the fourth will be a high school junior.

Phil Roberts, when he isn’t competing or training, spends his time passing his knowledge along, to share his joy of running. “I coach runners. I have a few runners that I’ve personally coached, and I’ve coached at the high school where my sons went and my daughter goes,” he said. “I coach cross country, and we just got track this past year. I’m the only non-faculty coach there.”

He said he still runs 50 to 70 miles per week. Not only for the workout and the physical benefits, but because in addition to all the awards and records in his career, he still has a goal.

“I would like to be a national champion among my peers. I’d like to win a national championship for (USA Track & Field) Masters runners,” he said. “I would like to become dominant in my age group.”