My Mom was a runner

My Mom was a runner who started running in her late 40’s. I never saw her run a race. I can’t turn back the clock but, if I could, I would have started running earlier in life and would have liked to run a race with her. She passed-away due to cancer in 1996 at age 64, almost 10 years before I started running.

As I said in my previous post, I am looking forward to running a few races with my wife Kathy. I don’t want to miss the opportunity we have to run together in the next few weeks. Kathy just completed a beginning running class and now is the perfect time for her to run a few races.

Back to my Mom - Her being a runner was part of my motivation for beginning to run around 5 years ago. I came across the newspaper clipping below that I had in my 'box of things'. She wouldn’t mind me posting it on the internet. Of course I miss my Mom.

--Mark

From the Ashland Daily Press, July 1981

15km runner goes for broke

Many competitors in Sunday’s 15K race agreed that the hot and humid conditions were far from ideal for running 9.3 miles. Some were unable to complete the event and others forced to walk a stretch in order to finish.

Their plight was understandable. But evidently some were not as ‘stubborn’ as Elizabeth Hanson, 49, the Grand View runner who placed first in the women’s 40-49 age group.

“I guess I’m kind of stubborn,” she related Tuesday. “I felt pain in my foot first, then with about two miles to go a snap, but like I said I’m stubborn and I kept on going. Sometimes I’d look over at the shade and the grass and feel like quitting …..I guess I just chanted to myself that it didn’t hurt, it didn’t hurt.”

Obviously it did.

Ms. Hanson is sporting a nice sized cast as proof – she ran the final two miles with a broken bone in her right foot!

“I went in to see Dr. Telford and discovered the foot was broken after he took an x-ray,” Hanson said. “I doubt I would have completed the race if I’d known it then.”

“I wore a new type of shoe that I’d only used twice before and I think I’ll look for another with more support before I start running again,” she continued, already planning a return to competition and rueing the end of her season.

“I’ll be in a cast for six weeks but I’ve already borrowed an exercise bike. I’ve got to do something. I won’t be able to run any more this summer.”

Hanson’s Baydays time was 78 minutes 50 seconds.

Here is a picture of her 1st-place-in-AG award. I keep it on my dresser and it's where I put all my extra race bib pins.



Mom in her old-school cast / crutches.