By: Chris Ha
Have you ever ran a marathon? The typical marathon is 26.2 miles long, and a lot of runners need to train for weeks just to be able to reach the finish line. Although many of us may never exercise again after highschool, there are plenty of teachers on this campus who run long distances on a regular basis.
MHS Math teacher Elijah Liao has ran about 50 marathons, four of which were 100 miles long, he said. He started running a long time ago, but stopped running coincidentally around the time he became a teacher, Liao added.
“When I started I would do one or two a year,” Liao said. “And then after a while, [I] lost motivation and part of it was because to qualify for the Boston Marathon you had to run a three hour and ten minute marathon and I could never get my time down that low without training really hard.”
Moving past this obstacle, instead of running faster, Liao tried running longer, which led to running ultra marathons, he said. Eventually, Liao started to run 10 to 15 ultra marathons a year, something that he just did on some weekends, he said.
Michael Cummins, a government and psychology teacher on the MHS campus also runs marathons, and gave a lot of insight into the mentality of a runner.
Cummins decided to become a runner so he could stay in shape, he said. Cummins is an introvert, and enjoys running because it is a sport that does not require you to interact with others, he added.
For one marathon that Cummins ran with fellow history teacher Paul Harrison, Cummins and Harrison followed a training book titled Hansons Marathon Method, Cummins said. By following this training method, they ran six days a week after school, sometimes for as long as two hours, he said.
Finally, Cummins explained why running is important to him personally. Running is great stress relief for all of the problems he deals throughout the day, he said. It is very important for his mental health, and without running he is much less happy, he added.
“You just, after a certain number of steps, you’ve solved all of your problems and then you come back rejuvenated and ready to face the next day’s teaching.”
The last teacher interviewed was Kristina Edwards, who is a P.E. and AVID teacher at MHS. Edwards has only ran one full marathon, but has ran many different half-marathons, she said. Mainly, she ran a lot of half marathons as part of training to run a full marathon, some of which were the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half-Marathon, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half-Marathon, and the Disney Half-Marathon. The marathon that Edwards built up to was the Maui marathon, which actually took place in Maui.
Edward’s main motivation for running was a personal goal to eventually run a marathon, she said. It was somewhat easier to manage running with teaching because she could run while she waited for her son to finish soccer practice, and do her long runs on weekends, she added.
Edwards also stated that she loves running and the community around it, and encourages others to try to start running as well. Everyone that Edwards has met at her runs have been very supportive, and she has always had positive experiences, she added.
“I’ve seen super overweight people, I’ve seen a double amputee, you see everybody out there doing the race, and everybody is so nice, and so it’s refreshing to do that when a lot of times in society we’re not so nice to each other.”
