Wife of area native competes in marathon for cancer

Following chemotherapy and radiation treatments that pushed her December 9, 2002 diagnosed disease into remission, O’Hare - the wife of 1988 Waukon Senior High School graduate Tim O’Hare and the daughter-in-law of Mike and Virginia O’Hare of rural Waukon - and Preston, MN friend Robin Honken competed in and completed the 32nd annual Honolulu Marathon December 12 of last year in Hawaii.

But completion of the 26.2-mile marathon course was only part of the success story for O’Hare and her friend, as the two were part of a nationwide campaign called “Team In Training” that, through the marathon, helped raise more than $2.5 million for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, an organization O’Hare became involved with following her medical battle.

With more than $150,000 of those funds being raised by participants from the state of Minnesota, O’Hare could boast top individual honors for her home state with a total of $8,100 raised. O’Hare, an elementary school teacher in Houston, MN, would like to express her appreciation to all those from northeast Iowa who helped her in her fundraising efforts.

As for the race, itself, O’Hare completed the course in a time of five hours and 20 minutes, with Honken clocking in at four hours and 56 minutes. Of the 25,000 people registered for the race, 22,388 actually finished the course, O’Hare placing “somewhere in the 9,000th-place range”, and Honken finishing in the top 7,000 runners.

The race was won by Kenyan Jimmy Muindi, who topped the field in a course record time of two hours, 11 minutes and 12 seconds. The first female to cross the finish line was Lyubov Morgunova of Russia, who completed the course in two hours, 27 minutes and 33 seconds.