We all consider our first steps to be a major milestone in life, but our school’s runners consider it to be an even bigger milestone to complete a marathon.

Marathons all started in Athens in 490 B.C.E. The Greek soldier, Pheidippides ran 26.2 miles from the town of Marathon, Greece to Athens. Legend has it that he ran to announce the defeat of the Persians to the Athenians, after delivering the message “Niki”, or more commonly known as victory, he then kneeled over and died. This was the 46th year of the Houston Chevron Marathon that first started in 1972. This year’s Chevron Marathon was a big hit with over 25,000 people participating. Some of our very own participated this year. Sophomore Lauren Ohler discusses why she decided to run.

“I decided to run because I really enjoy running long distances and it is just so relaxing in general to run the marathon,” Ohler said. “I also like running it because I feel accomplished afterwards.”

Running marathons, or even half marathons is no easy task as Ohler described what she had to do to prepare for this year’s half marathon that she participated in for the second time.

“I am a Cross Country runner so I mainly just practiced with them,” Ohler said. “We generally start with one mile for a warm up and then run three to four miles to get some real practice in. Then, we generally do another mile for a cool down.”

This marathon could also not take action without the many volunteers that participate in organizing this and helping the runners complete their race. Sophomore Annie Brownfield volunteered this year and described what she saw.

“I saw a lot of experienced running this year but I also saw some runners that looked my age,” Brownfield said. “It honestly just varied in the types of people that were running.”

Ohler described why she decided to take on the challenge of running the half marathon and how it correlated to keeping her fit.

“I wanted to run it as a challenge this year because, even though I had not practiced for it specifically, I still took it on just to try it,” Ohler said. “I also just run in general to keep my body healthy and fit, and running is the perfect way to do that.”

While some runners take three hours to run the half marathon others only take one hour. Ohler talked about how long it took her to run it.

“It took me one hour and 49 minutes, which is pretty good for someone who did not prepare for it at all,” Ohler said.