On April 15 in London, Ohio, four months before her 70th birthday, Mom ran her first marathon in 34 years. She qualified for the Boston Marathon with a time of 4 hours, 10 minutes and 28.55 seconds. That was a pace of 9:34 over the 26.2-mile course, which stretched from London to Georgesville along the bike path.
Mom needed a time of 4:50 to qualify. She smashed that time. She would have qualified by 10 minutes in the 60-64 age group.
Being a sports writer who’s always on duty, even on off days, I pulled out my phone to interview Mom at the finish line.
“I feel great,” she said. “I felt like crying. But I waited to the end and then I really started hyperventilating because I was so overcome with all the support I got from family. It’s unbelievable.”
I ran the last three miles with Mom until sprinting ahead at the end to grab my camera from my brother Adam so I could photograph her finishing the race. Adam ran an earlier segment with her as did his wife Susan and five of their eight kids. There were other family members on the course cheering for her: my mom’s sisters Ann and Barbara; brother-in-law Mark; and sister-in-law Molly.
My son Chase mostly played with Matchbox cars all morning with his cousins — 4-year-olds are hard to impress.
This was truly a family event. We recognized how important this race was to our mom’s running legacy. Adam and I skyrocketed to the top of the will for being there, ahead of our siblings Emily and Noah, though the rankings are ever changing, according to our parents.
Mom started running when she was 25, seven years after graduating from Alter High School. Her husband, my dad Jeff, also a 1971 Alter graduate, was attending the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo then. Mom had quit teaching to stay home with her first child — me.
“I met a woman who said she ran 10 miles,” Mary said. “I said, ‘Ten miles! Who runs 10 miles?’ She said, ‘You could run it.’ She gave me a pair of Keds. They didn’t have many shoes back then. She said, ‘You ought to run this race.’ I had never run a race in my life. I think I placed in my age group in my very first race. I was hooked.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
That’s how I grew up going to so many 5Ks in places like Newtown, Batavia, Ripley — anywhere close to our home in Mount Orab. Mom started running in the same year the Ohio High School Athletic Association held its first girls cross country state championship. Who knows what she could have done at the high school level had that been an option for her.
What we do know is she became an elite runner despite her relatively late start in the sport. At 36 in 1989, she won the Turkey Trot in Miamisburg in 30 minutes, 36 seconds. That was a pace of just over six minutes per mile over the 8K course.
Earlier that same year, Mom ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 3:42:58. She qualified with a time of 3:30 in the Columbus Marathon the previous fall.
For decades, my mom kept running, inspiring her four kids to follow her at different points in their lives. I ran my first marathon in Columbus in 2013. For her, running a marathon again remained a distant goal even as she dominated her age group at shorter distances.
In recent years, Mom started training specifically for the marathon distance.
“I started to get more serious about it because I’m getting older,” she said. “No matter what I do, I’m going to get older, so I might as well just embrace the pain of the marathon.”
Injuries kept getting in the way of her goal, however. She couldn’t get to the starting line healthy. Finally this year, she stayed on schedule, increasing her long runs by one mile every week until her longest run of 20 miles two weeks before the marathon.
Mom will now register for the 2024 Boston Marathon in September. I didn’t get to go the last time. I was 11 and probably had school. Now I’ve got plenty of PTO to burn, especially in the spring when the Dayton Flyers aren’t playing. I’ll be there next April 15. She won’t need my help or any help in that race with more than 28,000 runners competing.
While Mom’s times peaked in her 30s, her greatest accomplishment has been staying active over the years and aging like a fine box of Franzia, the wine she and my dad like to drink on trips. I asked her for advice on sticking with running into her 50s, which I’m now nearing, 60s and now 70s.
“You can do it,” she said. “It’s all mental. One foot in front of the other. Don’t give up. Focus. Running with other people really helps.”
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