After a two and half year hiatus, the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon returned to town this weekend.
Outside of the time I lived in a duplex in Mesta Park and got trapped in my neighborhood when all I wanted to do was cross Classen and get to Braum's for a Sunday morning hangover breakfast, I like the marathon and think it's a cool event for the city.
This is because...
A) It's a nice way to honor, remember, and never forget the victims who lost their lives – and the first responders who rushed to the scene – on that tragic day in April of 1995.
B) Even I, a card-carrying snark artist, isn't stupid enough to be overly critical of the OKC Marathon! Sure, the Oklahoma Standard messaging has grown trite, and it's a bit gross to see politicians who pander to right-wing militiamen exploit the event for social media likes and shares, but only a classless moron would hang a raincloud like that over what's supposed to a be a fun, feel good, cheery event for our city!
Although I'm a fan of the OKC Memorial Marathon and think it's awesome, I do have one question or favor to ask of our race organizers. Can we at least recruit some ringers to compete and make it a semi-respectable race???
Once again, I know the marathon is more of a fun, feel-good event city for our city than a world-class race, but it's probably not the best look when some dude from Chile who's never run in a marathon before can hop off the plane and win the event.
Check this out:
First-time marathoner comes from behind to win Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon
[Jose Pablo Salazar] Ezquerra won the men’s Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon with a final time of 2 hours, 28 minutes, and 57 seconds. His average pace was 5:41 minute mile...
Ezquerra, who is from Chile, has never completed a marathon before and decided that he really wanted to finish the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon.
He said he had a lot of fun, and didn’t think he would actually win the race.
Geeze, and you think your friends who just finished their first half-marathon are a bit annoying and full of themselves! Imagine hanging out with someone who won the first marathon they completed! They're probably worse to be around than someone who just ran in a color run!
Here's a photo of Jose crossing the finish line:
Wait. That's not Jose. That's Burrel Gambel. He's 100 and just became the oldest person to finish the OKC Marathon 5K, which is way more impressive than winning the first marathon you ever competed in. Hell, I'm 43 and can't even figure out how to download a couch to 5K app on my phone. Cheers to Burrel!
Here's a pic of Jose crossing the finish line:
Hey OKC Marathon organizers – While you're out recruiting more runners to beef up our marathon, can you also hire a new sign company? If we want a big league city marathon with big league city caliber runners, we need a big league city sign that doesn't look like it was printed and taped together in the Devon mailroom.
