Marian Yazzie ran her first marathon by accident.
She had signed up to run the half-marathon at the Shiprock Marathon in May, but she and her sister were in such a hurry to get to the starting line that she mistakenly got out at the starting point for the full marathon.
“I didn’t say anything. I just pinned my number on my shirt and started to run,” Yazzie said. “Then, when I hit the actual 13-mile mark where the half-marathon started, there was nobody there. And since they had the road blocked off, I had no choice but to run the rest.”
Yazzie, a 52-year-old native of Sweetwater, Arizona, is currently a full-time student in the Welding Program at Southwest Colorado Community College’s Mancos Campus.
And in her free time, she enjoys running.
She doesn’t have a specific training routine to prepare for races. Instead, she runs around three miles every other day, and occasionally stretches runs to 13 to 15 miles.
After completing the Shiprock Marathon, Yazzie had confirmed she could complete the full 26.2-mile race, and decided she wanted to try a different marathon.
She settled on the New York City Marathon.
Yazzie received sponsorship from Community Access – a New York-based nonprofit that provides a range of housing, job skills, employment placement and professional support services to help break the cycle of homelessness – and hopped on plane for the Nov. 1 race.
“It was my first time in New York City and my first time flying. I don’t really care for flying,” she said giggling.
Then, on Nov. 1, Yazzie joined 50,234 other runners in the race through New York City’s five boroughs.
“The weather was good,” she said. “It wasn’t cloudy, it wasn’t cold. It was just the perfect weather to run 26 miles,” she said, chuckling at the notion that an average person would find any weather ideal for running that distance.
“There were three bridges that we had to cross, and the second one was the steepest and I barely made it up,” Yazzie said describing the race. “By the time I hit the 20-mile marker, the muscles near my knee started cramping up, so that kind of set my time back.”
Yazzie finished in five hours, 54 minutes and 4 seconds. But as she explained, she wasn’t necessarily there to compete.
“It was more just another adventure for me,” she said.
While Yazzie and her daughter are thinking about racing in next year’s New York City Marathon, she also has other adventures planned for 2016.
“My goal is to run as many of the National Park half-marathons that are available throughout the United States,” she said.
She’s already registered for the Zion Half Marathon in Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon Half Marathon, but she also noted that she would like to compete in Mudderella, a 5- to 7-milelong muddy obstacle course, and plans to try a mini-triathlon.
Marian Yazzie is in for a busy year.
But she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Running is my way of relaxing,” she said. “I don’t just go home and sit around and watch TV. On the weekends, it’s the first thing I do. I get up at five o’clock, put on my running clothes and just take off running.”