On Sunday, crowds cheered, runners pushed each other along, and no one was stuck in their house or running out on their own.
Like many runners, Kyle King was gearing up to run the Marine Corps Marathon last year. But the coronavirus was still too prevalent, and a month before the race, organizers called it off for the second year in row.But in another sign of life returning to normal, of society opening back up, King and about 11,400 others took off Sunday morning near Arlington National Cemetery for the 26.2-mile race past the area’s most storied monuments and buildings. Crowds cheered.
The couple, both active-duty members of the U.S. Coast Guard, also ran to honor Sierra’s grandfather, a Marine. They’d had to wait for two years. The race dates to 1976, when it started as the “Marine Corps Reserve Marathon.” Responsibility was transferred two years later to active-duty Marines. The race has grown into the nation’s largest marathon that doesn’t offer prize money, said race spokeswoman Kristen Loflin, and as such is known as “The People’s Marathon.”In 1989, according to race officials, Bob Wieland, a medically discharged Army medic who lost both his legs in Vietnam, started the marathon several days early.
As covid swept the globe, shutting down road races, Marine Corps Marathon organizers held “virtual” races in which participants could chart their own routes. But it was hardly the same.He’d run competitively in college and graduate school, joined the Marines, and around 2018 started training again for high-level racing. In 2019, at the World Military Games in of all places Wuhan, China, King finished 8th in marathon.They didn’t slow down King’s training.