He finished more than three and a half hours behind the champion, yet Chilean miner Edison Pena won the hearts of spectators with an inspiring effort at the New York City Marathon Sunday.
Pena, the 12th miner brought to the surface last month after being trapped with 32 companions for 69 days, ran daily through the tunnels of the mine until the rescue and was invited to New York by race organizers.
Coping with aching knees during his 26.2-mile trip through the five boroughs of New York, Pena completed the journey in five hours 40 minutes 51 seconds to sustained cheers from crowds of more than two million who lined the course.If I was trapped underground for ten weeks, I think I'd spend the next three months eating Chinese food, drinking heavily, and trembling in fear. I certainly wouldn't be running a marathon a month later, that's for sure.
It's always interesting to see how people react and respond to traumatic experiences. Some people don't ever recover properly, while others approach the rest of their life as a gift, and take full advantage of their second lease on life. It seems like Edison Pena is in the latter camp; he sees his story as an opportunity to lead and inspire, and he's (literally) running with it. Congrats to him.
[Reuters]
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