2009 - A Race in Memory of My Mom...

Katherine Plichta

I ran my first marathon in January 2008, in Disney World of all places. As I was running, I overhead another runner say, "Keep this pace, and we’ll qualify for Boston!" I had never thought about Boston, and I hadn’t been paying attention to my time in the least.

I was just running as fast as I could without running out of steam. I wondered what the qualifying time was, and whether I could actually make it. But I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to finish before I could think.

I was twenty-two miles in, and my legs started feeling heavy.

Another mile and they felt like bricks, as they had during my first twenty-miler. I had gotten through that, though, and I would get through this as well. "If my mom could take on cancer," I thought, "I can finish a marathon." This had become my mantra. Whenever I doubted myself or found myself in a painful situation, I would remember that what I was going through was comparatively a piece of cake. Another mile passed. "Just keep running, Katie. Nothing else matters. Just keep running." The same people kept passing me. They would stop and walk, and then sprint, while I just kept a steady pace. When I saw the finish line, though, I started sprinting. It was a quarter-mile away, but I sprinted the whole way in. I saw my mom on the sidelines, grinning from ear to ear and holding a sign that said, "Go, Katie, Go!"