‘It couldn’t put a stop to every good thing’: Why I ran 26.2 miles on Boston Marathon day – Courier Journal

Kirby’s daughter Jordan tells the story of her mom’s journey to run the Boston Marathon, despite the postponement of the race because of COVID-19. Louisville Courier Journal

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Without spectators or fellow competitors, formal water stops or finisher swag, what would have been the official race day for the 2020 Boston Marathon became a personal moment to say “Take that, COVID-19!”

The last time I ran the Boston Marathon was a very long time ago — April 16,1984. There is a framed print on my bedroom wall that has reminded me of that day for more than three decades —and it’s not a great memory. It was cold, rainy and a devastating disappointment.

In other words, was nothing like the sunny, uplifting and considerably slower event I ran Monday, April 20, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

In 1984, the legendary race was my last shot at the 2:51:16 qualifying standard for the first Women’s Olympic Trials Marathon. I had come oh-so-close to the time at a West Coast marathon a few weeks earlier. Boston was my final shot to punch a ticket to the trials.

As it turned out, it wasn’t meant to be, the clock ran out long before I got to the soggy Boston finish.

Looking back, it seems nuts that women weren’t allowed to take part in the marathon distance at the Olympics until 1984. It was a significant turning point in women’s running, and even though I hadn’t qualified, I did get the assignment. The television station I worked for flew me to the race site in Olympia, Washington, to cover the historic athletic event.

Incredibly, Joan Benoit, who had undergone arthroscopic knee surgery 17 days earlier, came across the finish line first. She would go on to win the first women’s Olympic marathon in Los Angeles later that year. I vividly remember getting goosebumps as I watched her, wrapped in the American flag, take her victory lap around the LA Memorial Coliseum.

As for me, 36 years after my one and only Boston Marathon, I had shifted to other sports. I hadn’t given the oldest marathon in the world much thought until I recently stumbled into a qualifying time at the Marine Corp Marathon in Washington, D.C.

Trust me — if you are a runner who continues in the sport and lives long enough, it gets a heck of a lot easier to post a qualifying time for the 26.2 mile Boston Marathon.

Like a good little running soldier, I spent the winter in frigid temperatures, sleet and dark doing hill repeats, speed work and long runs with a group of like-minded friends in the Fleet Feet Louisville Distance Project.

“This will be the last time I run Boston,” I told myself, and I was determined to put in the work to run it well.

Heck, I even skipped a spring vacation with my family to Costa Rica because I didn’t think I would want to complete a scheduled 20-mile training run up and down the only safe area I was aware of, a one-mile stretch of a sandy beach.

I know, I know, in hindsight that was extreme.

But how could any of us have known that during that same week we’d start hearing reports from Italy and Great Britain about quarantined runners completing full marathons in their tiny backyards or on their balconies?

Remember how crazy that sounded just a couple of months ago?

Coronavirus changed everything

So while my family enjoyed a sun-drenched Costa Rican vacation, I was preparing for my long training run around Louisville —until word came down from the Boston Athletic Association that it would postpone the traditional spring marathon until Sept. 14.

Initially, the news ripped the wind from the sails of my resolve.

Then came a phone call from North Carolina: “Mom, can you pick me up?” I know lots of you got that same type of call from your children who were suddenly sent home from college due to the spread of the coronavirus.

One day I was training for a foot race, the next I was racing in the minivan to pick up my daughter. Within eight hours, all the training came to an abrupt halt.

But here’s the thing about runners, we don’t stay still for long.

Like everyone else entrenched in social isolation, if there was a chance to get outdoors, I grabbed it. Instead of working through my lunch hour or heading to the gym (they are all closed anyway), I was anxious to get outside. I was now running more miles per week than I had been before I stopped training for the Boston Marathon.

Sound familiar?

But running was actually only a small part of my day. As a reporter at The Courier Journal, I was writing about health care workers on the frontlines of the coronavirus fight and people sewing face masks in their living rooms.

Without medical expertise or the patience to sit at a sewing machine, I felt sort of helpless. I realized that if I was going to make a stand against the pandemic, my best option would be to control what I could.

That meant complying to social distancing measures and completing my plan to re-do that disappointing 1984 Boston Marathon on my own terms. It was a silent vow I made to myself as a way to show the fast-spreading disease it couldn’t put a stop to every good thing.

It was now the Friday before the official Boston Marathon should have taken place on April 20. I mentioned my plan to my daughter, the one I had rushed off to pick up at college. She’s a collegiate national champion triathlete, and I felt like I could use her support if I was going to make this work.

She ended up giving me so much more.

26.2 miles … in Boston or Louisville

On Saturday, she presented me with a race packet complete with a homemade race number – 7777 – five safety pins to attach it to my running shirt, a tube of BioFreeze for sore muscles and a handwritten certificate for a post-race massage. She also mapped out a 26.2 mile course on a training app called Strava.

If I had any doubts, her excitement solidified my plan.

I sent a text to a few of my running buddies. I invited them to join me, one at a time, practicing safe social distancing, for “The Boston Marathon, Louisville Edition.”

At 8 a.m. on Boston Marathon Monday, my husband and I stepped over an imaginary starting line at the end of the driveway. My solo run had begun.

There was no “bang” of a starting gun, no familiar “beep beep beep” of tracking chips crossing the starting line. Just a single squeal as I pushed the button on my Garmin, a bird chirped as it flew by and our daughter called out a lonely sounding, “Go Mom!”

To my surprise, and extreme delight, from that point on I never ran more than 4 miles without company. One or two at a time, friends and family appeared and disappeared along the course.

My daughter, Jordan Grantz, had become an impromptu race director and texted my location to help others find me along the course through the Highlands and St. Matthews.

People drove around town in their cars and on their bicycles, sometimes for miles until they found me. They waited with water and food. Some made posters for encouragement, others took time off work to run a few miles.

We talked, like runners do, about everything, from music, recipes and our kids, to the great weather, memories of past races and “which way to turn next.” Not once did COIVD-19, quarantine or a lack of toilet paper creep into our conversation.

During those four glorious and sunny hours of my Boston Marathon in Louisville, we were immersed in the moment, which was simply pure and soulful.

Thirty-six years after running that personally disappointing Boston Marathon, I turned onto our familiar, tree-lined street, and I felt overwhelming joy.

Earlier: My visit to Peru’s Machu Picchu was special in every way

This was a different feeling than I have felt at the end of any race over the past 40 years. It was uncomplicated and clutter-free because there were no sponsor banners, finisher chutes, loudspeakers or worries about setting a personal best time.

Heading down the final quarter-mile I could hear a faint clanging of tin bells and cheering. Neighbors came out of their homes, stood on their porches and clapped as I approached my family gathered around a giant finish line drawn in chalk across the black pavement of our street.

Like I would in an official marathon, I crossed the finish and felt a great sense of relief and gratitude. Sanctioned or not, 26 miles is a long way to run, and I was really happy to be done.

But unlike other races prior to the pandemic, we couldn’t hug or offer each other a high five or a fist bump at the end — we could only smile and laugh about a job well done. And you know, that’s all that mattered.

“This was the best time I have had since this whole coronavirus pandemic started,” said 17-year-old Gard Jensen, who had joined me for part of the marathon. It was a feeling we all shared throughout the day and especially at the finish line.

Along with my family and friends, we’d stared down COVID-19 and proved the disease can’t spoil every single thing. On this day, the human spirit had won.

Reach Kirby Adams at kadams@courier-journal.com or Twitter @kirbylouisville. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/kirbya.

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