MARINES, MOFFETTS, AND MARATHONS
Fitness is part of the Marines
Corps ethos. If you want to be a Marine, then you need to be able to run. My
brother John was a cross-country standout in high school, so when he joined the
Marines running was not a problem. Because he could shoot, move, and
communicate he was the honor graduate for his Parris Island recruit training
platoon. He later became an officer.
I followed John into the
Marine Corps and for a while we were both lieutenants stationed in California. It
took me longer than it did John to become a shooting expert but I eventually
made it. I also recorded some excellent run times but never could quite match
those of John.
After finally beating him in a
10K road race on a Marine base, I immediately called our mom with the great
news. Always careful not to show favoritism, she congratulated both of us
instead of just me!
John eventually ran in the
Marine Corps Marathon, the same one that Oprah Winfrey famously completed. John’s
time was considerably better than Oprah’s fairly impressive 4:29:15.
Years later, while stationed
in Hawaii, John met and married Mette, a beautiful Danish girl. He retired from
the Marines and then they moved to Boulder, Colorado, where they had two
beautiful children, Kristian and Malia. Then, to honor their Danish heritage,
they all moved to Copenhagen in 2007.
Tragedy struck in Copenhagen
on Sept. 6, 2007. John was competing in a road race when he suffered a cardiac
seizure and died right on the course.
It’s always painful to lose a
family member, and it’s especially hard when that member is still relatively
young with two small children.
In part to honor John’s
memory, Mette literally hit the road and became a regular runner. A year ago
she traveled from Denmark to Edinburgh, Scotland, to run in a marathon. She
surprised even herself with her fast time and her strong finish actually
qualified her for the Boston Marathon.
Last August she and the kids
moved back to America—to Concord—and Mette continued to train with a goal of
completing the Boston Marathon.
My brother Jim, nephew Caleb,
and I drove into Boston on April 17 to see the Marathon and to support Mette. Our
mom, Mette’s mom, and Malia traveled down separately.
I was struck by the thousands
of female runners, and thought about Kathrine Switzer, who used her initials to
register for the 1967 Marathon, for which she received bib number 261. (Mette’s
bib number of 20164 would include Switzer’s numbers.)
Midway through that 1967 race,
a Marathon official, Jock Semple, realized that a woman was running in what had
always been a males-only competition, and he stepped onto the road in front of
Switzer to forcibly remove her from the marathon. A Kathrine supporter literally
knocked Semple off to the side of the road and the young woman continued
running towards Boston, where she became the first female to officially finish
the historic race.
Many runners just can’t
complete the Boston Marathon, for any of a myriad of reasons. I hoped that
Mette would make it, but whatever happened, I’d remain proud that she’d tried.
And finish she did, with a
very credible time of 3:44. Through the magic of cell phones, Mette’s fans all
linked up with the triumphant runner on the Boston Common afterwards to
celebrate. Mette had accomplished her goal of honoring John’s memory with a
completed marathon ten years after his death.
And on the subject on
anniversaries, we later learned that Kathrine Switzer celebrated the 50th
anniversary of her historic 1967 marathon run by also completing the 2017 race.
The 70-year-old icon, wearing bib number 261, finished with a time of
4:44—exactly an hour behind Mette.
A marathon is the most
difficult of sporting events to watch. It’s not like a basketball game in a gym.
It’s a 26.2 mile course. Spectators have to pick their spots to get glimpses of
their favorites. I found a perch by the Buckminster Hotel—near Fenway Park—to
watch the field and try to get a photo of Mette. It was a joy to see just a
tiny part of this Hallmark sports event, with its diverse thousands of runners
drawing inspiration from the continuous cheering from hundreds of thousands of
spectators.
It then occurred to me that
maybe John was somehow in a position to see the whole race, not just a piece of
it.
I'm sure he was very proud.
