Most father-daughter activities consist of taking in a movie together, having a bite to eat or even a trip to the bowling alley. Rick and Jessica Holman, of Clarkston, eschewed the normal routine this year and instead opted to run the Chicago Marathon together on Oct. 10 Jessica and her father Rick had been training for months for the race, which is the largest marathon in the United States. This year 42,000 people and Jessica and Rick were two of the 32,000 who were able to finish it.
“It was Jessica who challenged me to get in shape and try for the marathon,” said Rick, who ran track at Milford High School and for two years at Kalamazoo College.
“You call him ‘old man? a few times and he’s out there,” said Jessica, who in marathon terms is in a final sprint to the graduation line at Oakland University where she is majoring in anthropology.
The Holman’s started running together when Jessica was a senior in high school, but never dreamed at the time they would be able to take on a race of such magnitude as the Chicago Marathon.
“It’s so pitiful to think about the amount we used to run, we used to think we were so hip, but now we pass (our old maximum distance) without breaking a sweat,” said Jessica.
The Holman’s training runs gradually grew larger and larger, and the prospect of being able to run a marathon together was becoming more and more real. When they felt that they were ready, Rick and Jessica chose the Chicago Marathon for a myriad of reasons.
“We knew it had a preponderance of first time runners, plus I knew it was kind of a flat course,” said Rick; to which Jessica added, “Yeah it was flat until the end.”
Going in to the marathon, the Holman’s goal was to stick with the 11:00 minute mile group which would have brought them in to the finish in just under five hours. The plan was sound in essence, but it did not take in to factor the sheer numbers of the race. The father-daughter tandem three miles into the race by the swarming masses.
“I looked over and Dad was on the right of the street, I yelled through the crowd ‘I love you,? he waved back and then the next time I looked back he was gone,” said Jessica who still gets wide-eyed excited when recounting the energy of the crowd. “(In Clarkston) we had a couple running partners, but (in Chicago) there was thousands of people and they were all screaming ‘run.?”
Once Rick lost sight of his daughter, he could not keep his mind from wandering over possible injuries Jessica might have suffered. To placate himself, Rick checked with the race’s medical support staff as to whether they had treated his daughter. To his delight they had not treated any Jessica so far that day. In the end, Rick used his cell phone to call Jessica knowing full well that she had left hers in the car, but the messages he left her telling her how he hoped she was okay, voicing his disappointment over their split, and offering words of encouragement calmed his heart and allowed him to finish the race without fretting every step of the way.
“The last two miles were sheer drudgery, every step was laborious. I knew if I stopped, I wouldn’t finish,” said Rick, who had no idea how close he had come to finding his daughter during the race.
“There was a point where my father and I hit the same mark within two seconds of one another, but there were so many people that we did not even notice each other,” said Jessica. She also had to carve out a new race strategy once she was seperated from her father.
“I knew if I kept going we would eventually find one another, but if I had stopped the roads were closed behind me and I was seven miles out of downtown Chicago,” said Jessica.
Rick ended up crossing the finish line in 4:47 and Jessica came in at 5:01.
While Rick and Jessica may not have run the Chicago Marathon in perfect step with one another they will cherish the memories forever.
“At the finish line, Jess and I met for an emotional reunion. We had wanted to run together, but it was not to be. Losing Jessica was a real bummer, but the race conditions, the crowds and the sights were just outstanding” said Rick.