Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon Relay – April 24, 2005
“Daddy, can I run a marathon?”
We had barely landed after returning home from my debut marathon in Chicago in October 2004 when Andie, still abuzz from the excitement of chasing me around the Windy City as a spectator, wanted a piece of the action.
My brain knew that it wasn’t realistic for a 6-year old to run 26.2 miles, but I didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm.
My heart, on the other hand, wanted to find a way to give her the exhilaration of crossing the Finish line at a major race.
“Well, let’s see what we can figure out.”
After a bit of internet research, I discovered that certain marathons offer a Relay division, where the distance can be split up among multiple team members. Further research led me to the fact that the nearest upcoming marathon with a Relay division would be in Oklahoma City in April.
The marathon distance is just a little bit over 42 Kilometers (42K), and the OKC Marathon Relay split it up into 5 legs as follows: 10K, 5K, 12K, 5K, 10K.
Could Andie, who would celebrate her 7th birthday just before OKC, maybe run one of the 5K legs of the relay (accompanied by Jenny or me)?
Given the fact that she had not been running, and that she would need to train during the brutal winter months in order to be prepared, I decided that it would not be reasonable.
But wait … the OKC Memorial Marathon, in an effort to promote fitness among youth, was offering a “Kids Marathon”! The way it worked was that a kid could sign up, run a total of 25 miles over the course of several days – one mile at a time – and then come to OKC and run the final 1.2 miles of their marathon while enjoying the “rock star” treatment of a big race.
Perfect!
So we registered Andie and Joey for the Kids Marathon, downloaded the log sheet, and started accompanying them during their one-mile runs.
Although it would be exciting for them to train and run in OKC, it seemed like a long way to drive for a 1.2 mile run that would last less than 15 minutes. So I decided to see whether I could recruit some family members to create a 5-person team to run the Marathon Relay.
After some discussion, we decided that I would run the lead-off 10K, Jenny would run the middle 12K, and Sydney wanted to run the final 10K leg in order to have the thrill of crossing the Finish Line.
So we still needed two people to run the 5K legs. Who could we get?
Fortunately, my brother-in-law Bob and niece Audrey Horton wanted to run.
And my sister Janeen agreed to join our kids, and her son Trey, for the Kids Marathon.
We had our team!
In order to generate some team spirit, I decided to create a team name and logo to put on some t-shirts. My first prototype was the team name and logo “Flatulence Assisted Relay Team (FART)” which, despite being accurate, was vetoed by the more mature minds on our team. Finally, the name and logo “Family In Training (FIT)” was deemed acceptable.
The race was scheduled for April 24, 2005, and would be the culmination of the “National Week of Hope” to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the tragic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. For the previous 5 years, the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon had served as a living memorial for the 168 men, women, and children who lost their lives on April 19, 1995, billing itself as “A Run to Remember”.
Over the course of the days leading up to the race, the kids accumulated their 25 miles, the t-shirts were made, and we all trained for our various legs of the run.
The Sodergren’s took the family van down to Oklahoma City on the Friday before the race, where we enjoyed the Bricktown area and attended an OKC minor league baseball game, which at that time was the Oklahoma RedHawks, an affiliate of the Texas Rangers.
The next day we made our way to the race packet pick-up, where we enjoyed listening to the featured speaker, Bill Rodgers, the winner of four Boston Marathons and five straight New York City Marathons. Knowing that he would be there, I had taken a Sports Illustrated featuring him on the cover, and he was gracious to sign it for me while giving words of encouragement and support for our team.
Another featured speaker at the packet pick-up was Frank Shorter, who among many accomplishments won the Gold medal at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. He was also a great ambassador for the sport, encouraging the kids to keep running while signing race posters (and another Sports Illustrated cover) for us.
(One regret I have is not getting photos of us with these two giants in the world of marathoning. It was the age before Smartphones, and just wasn’t done as much as it is today.)
After the packet pick-up, we took the kids over to visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, which is located in downtown Oklahoma City on the former site of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed in the 1995 bombing.
The Gates of Time frame the moment of destruction – 9:02 – and mark the formal entrances to the Outdoor Memorial. 9:01, found on the eastern gate, represents the last moments of peace, while its opposite on the western gate, 9:03, represents the first moments of recovery.
The outside of each gate bears this inscription:
We come here to remember Those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.
A thin layer of water flows over polished black granite to form The Reflecting Pool, which runs east to west down the center of the Memorial on what was once Fifth Street.
The Field of Empty Chairs features 168 empty chairs hand-crafted from glass, bronze, and stone represent those who lost their lives, with a name etched in the glass base of each.
An American elm on the north side of the Memorial, The Survivor Tree, was the only shade tree in the parking lot across the street from the Murrah Building. Heavily damaged by the bomb, the tree survived after nearly being chopped down during the initial investigation, when workers wanted to recover evidence hanging in its branches and embedded in its bark.
The force of the blast ripped most of the branches from the Survivor Tree. Almost a year after the bombing, family members, survivors, and rescue workers gathered for a memorial ceremony by the tree noticed it was beginning to bloom again. The Survivor Tree now thrives, and the Outdoor Memorial design includes a mandate to feature and protect the tree.
After our emotional and tears-inducing visit to the Memorial, we met up with the Horton Family, who had traveled down that afternoon and had brought Mom and Dad along to watch. We enjoyed the beautiful evening walking around Bricktown, where we ate a pasta dinner in order to “carbo-load” for the next morning’s run.
After returning to the hotel, I decided to lay on the bed and look over the official race program. As if our visit earlier in the day to the Memorial had not been enough motivation, I found particular inspiration from the following message in the race program from the President of the race’s Board of Directors:
“Children are like plants. They start life so small and unprotected. They need lots of care and lots of attention and it is not always easy to see what they will grow to be.
Over time, if they are nurtured, they become stronger and are able to withstand the rigors of the world around them.
Six years ago we planted a seed.
It has been 10 years since that tragic day in 1995. That should be long enough for the wounds to heal and the scars to fade, but it isn’t. It should also be long enough for people to forget, but they haven’t. So each year for the last five years we have come to this place, not to mourn, but to celebrate. Out of tragedy was born the Memorial Marathon and over the last five years thousands of people have come to know and love our little girl.
Time slips by if you don’t pay attention. Five years is a lifetime. Five years is no time. What has happened in your life in the last five years? What have you accomplished? You are here for this day and that is important. Hopefully the journey was rewarding in itself and Sunday will be the icing. That is how it is. Growth doesn’t happen in a moment, it occurs over time. And while we celebrate growth with milestone events (like birthdays) we acknowledge that we have been changing a little each day.
So it is with the Memorial Marathon. She has continued to grow and change. She continues to surprise us and sometimes frustrate us, but mostly she inspires us. She inspires us to do our best in everything we do. She inspires us to reach out to others in order that we can all move forward. She inspires us to remember our past in order to secure our future. She inspires us to find a reason to run.
It is the incremental nature of life that makes each moment significant. You cannot predict what the next moment will bring, nor can you recapture that moment once it is gone. Purpose to live each moment fully aware, fully alive, and fully engaged. You will never regret it.
May your day be blessed as you Run to Remember.”
~ Thomas A. Hill III
I turned out the light with a heart filled with gratitude for the time together with family.
As the lead-off runner, and with the race slated to begin at 6:30, it was decided that I would drive to the Start/Finish area by myself in the morning, allowing the later runners to sleep in, with Mom and Dad driving the Relay runners to their various points along the course at a later time.
After a 5am alarm, I got ready and drove downtown, parked the van, and took my place in the starting corral. Before the start of the race, there were 168 seconds of silence in honor of all who had lost their lives in the bombing. Every detail of the memory of thousands of runners standing in complete silence is indelibly etched in my mind – the goosebumps, the lump in the throat, and the tears.
Following the national anthem, the starting horn blared, and we were off. While our team didn’t really talk about any kind of time goals or anything, I know that we wanted to do well.
Because of that, I did not want to be the “weakest link”, and had trained accordingly. So while I definitely wanted to take in the sights and sounds, I also had one eye on the watch.
Something that I had noticed during the packet pick-up was that competitors were given the option of pinning the name of one of the 168 bombing victims to their back, and every time I would see one of these signs on a fellow runner’s back, I would pause to take note before passing. This was extremely inspirational, and was pushing me to run ever harder to honor their memory.
Then it happened.
As I approached a young girl, I was finally able to make out the name scrawled on the homemade sign on her back.
“Mom”
In an instant, the lump returned to my throat, and it was very difficult to breathe.
After following her for a while, and mulling whether to say something to her, I noticed that she seemed to relish the interactions from our fellow runners.
But what to say?
“Your mom is looking down on you with pride. God bless you,” I said quietly as I passed.
“Thanks. That means a lot.” She replied.
The remaining miles were a blur, and before I knew it, I was approaching the Relay Exchange zone. About 100 meters before the zone, a race volunteer would radio ahead the race numbers of the oncoming runners, and the corresponding relay teammates were brought to the front of the line.
I sprinted (for me) the final 100 meters and slapped hands with my brother-in-law Bob. My morning of running was complete, and now it was time to go into “Teammate Mode”. I found one of the shuttle buses that they had to take the relay runners back to the Start/Finish area, where the Kids Marathon was just getting underway.
By the time I got back to the Start area, I was able to find Janeen and the kids as they enjoyed their postrun food and drink. While I hadn’t been able to see the Kids Marathon myself, Janeen shared with me later that it, much like my personal experience, had been quite moving. She shared with me that at the starting gun, Trey and Joey took off running at a rapid pace, while she and Andie held back.
Janeen also shared with me that, as they approached the final stretch of the 1.2 miles, she decided to let Andie take off, and that the vision of Andie’s ponytail bobbing up and down as she sprinted off finally got the better of her emotions.
(Janeen – and I – have this thing where watching runners gets us emotional. Are you crying yet, Janeen?)
After allowing the kids some time to bask in the glory of their accomplishment – and pigging out on the FREE food! – we found the van and took off to chase our relay teammates. After some quick calculations, we decided that it made the most sense to go to the Relay Exchange zone where Jenny would hand off to Audrey, which would be at the 27K (16.8 mile) mark.
We got there in plenty of time, and saw Audrey waiting in the crowd of relay runners, waiting for the handoff. After a short wait, we saw Jenny approach and slap hands with Audrey.
Upon seeing us, Jenny ran over to us, and we assumed that her day of running was done. Much to our surprise, after stopping to say “Hi” to us and taking a drink of water, Jenny took off like a bat out of hell to chase down and run another 5K with Audrey! It was awesome to watch them running together, laughing and looking like they were having the time of their lives.
Our next stop was the 32K (20 mile) mark, where Audrey/Jenny would hand off to Sydney. This time, Jenny pulled off the course (we thought she might just go ahead and run another 10K with Sydney!) and joined us for the trip to the Finish area. We drove a block parallel to the course, and every mile or so we would pull back over to the course, just in time to see Syd come flying by. She had a huge smile on her face and was making it look easy.
We drove back to the Finish area, found a parking spot, and staked out our spot along the finishing area in order to see Syd cross the Finish line. Soon enough, we saw her bright yellow shirt and yelled at the top of our lungs for her and our team. She crossed the line as our finishing time of 3:30:45 flashed on the digital readout.
(We later learned that this was good enough for 3rd Place in the “Family” division … not too bad for two old guys, my young wife, a high school sophomore, and an 8th grader!)
After everybody received their race medals, we took some pictures and enjoyed more of the FREE food and drink.
And we all enjoyed the beautiful spring weather and the day we all ran a marathon together.
A Run to Remember, indeed.
