Family Races Their Mom at Chicago Every Year to Take Down Her PR – Runner’s World
There is an event bigger than Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the Super Bowl for the Valenta family, and that’s the Chicago Marathon.
Mom is the leader of that charge. It all started when Noriko, now 58, found herself shuttling her kids—Rudy, 32, Antoinette, 29, and Michael, 28—around a bunch of locations in the La Grange, Illinois, area for different sports practices. At that time, her eldest daughter ran cross country, and her coach approached Noriko about the predicament.
“I was going back and forth seven times a day,” Noriko told Runner’s World. “Finally, my daughter’s coach asked if I wanted to just stay and run with the kids. So, I did.”
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Noriko was eventually promoted to assistant coach, and the running bug hit the family hard, as all the kids joined the team at some point in high school. Yet, upon graduation, mom was only left with the team to run with. That’s when she found her running friends, a local group made up of women who pushed her to go farther.
Eventually, she took on the marathon distance at Chicago in 2003. In her debut 26.2, she ended up qualifying for Boston with a . Noriko didn’t even know what Boston was when people told her to apply for the race.
She just enjoyed the sport, and that enthusiasm was eventually pushed on her kids. It was a far cry from their cross-country days at school, where they ran at the back of the pack.
“People made fun of them and said that mom was faster than them and they have to beat my time,” Noriko said. “So, it turned into a family event.”
The first to step up was Rudy, who ran his first marathon at Chicago 2010, with his mom coming out on top by more than 11 minutes. Inspired or jealous—depending on which sibling you ask—Michael followed suit in 2011, running that year’s Chicago against his mom and his brother.
“My brother ran the marathon, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to get shown up by my brother,’” Michael told Runner’s World. “From there, it just became a friendly competition of who could be the fastest that would bring us together each year.”
With the brothers leading the way, Antoinette jumped in the fray in 2012 as a senior in college.
Yet the three Valenta siblings were unable to catch up to their mom, who at her peak boasted a 3:17 personal best.
They were able to overtake her in the race, though: Due to worsening arthritis, Noriko has only run half the marathon since 2016.
“Her friends would always be like, ‘Why can’t you beat your mom?’” Rudy told Runner’s World. “Even when we finally did, her friends started saying, ‘Of course you did. You should be beating your mom.’ It’s always going to be a lose-lose for us.”
Breaking her PR, however, had remained elusive up until this year, when Rudy dropped a .
Courtesy of Antoinette Valenta
Aside from the friendly family competition, the race is simply a holiday for the family, and a way for them to get together. The kids are all spread out around the country now—Rudy in New York City, Antoinette in Charleston, South Carolina, and Michael still near home in Naperville, Illinois—so the race and the training that comes along with it allow the family to stay connected through their shared passion.
From sharing how training is going to monitoring Strava posts, the four are able to track their loved ones throughout the year. Sure, there are also jabs at one another, but it’s all in good fun.
“There’s never a guarantee we’re all going to be together for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” Michael said. “But for this weekend in October, we know we’ll all be together.”
On race day, the family meets at the Hilton downtown for prerace chats before heading to their respective corrals. Once it begins, they file through the mass of people through the city. They see their dad at mile 18 where he’s posted up near his alma mater—the University of Illinois at Chicago—since they all started the tradition.
He waits until everyone passes before heading home. He’d join them at the finish line, but he’d be waiting a while as everyone usually hangs out at the hospitality. The family says they are usually the last ones out.
After that, they all meet at home, share their race stories, and relax in the spirit of their family holiday until someone starts talking about next year.
“We’re already talking about signing up again,” Noriko said. “Chicago is just so fun. It’s better than Christmas day for us.”
Gear & News Editor Drew covers a variety of subjects for Runner’s World and Bicycling, and he specializes in writing and editing human interest pieces while also covering health, wellness, gear, and fitness for the brand.