The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest annual marathon. The first one took place in 1897 with only 15 runners. Now people come from all over the world to run in or watch the race every year.
The appr ox imate ly 500,000 spectators that will watch the race in person next year will get to see Rockdale’s Mary Woodward and her son Cale Garza as they run by.
Mary is a marathon veteran and ran the Boston Marathon in 2004. She also qualified for it in 2007, but due to injury was unable to compete.
She qualified in 2015 but, due to a new rule she was unaware of, missed the cutoff a nd w as l eft o ut o f t he field of runners.
She has run 10 more marathons in an effort to qualify since 2015, only to be met with a lot of heartache and disappointment.
In August of 2022 she decided to enter the California International Marathon to achieve her dream of getting back to Boston.
Her son, Cale, who had recently started running half marathons, was giving her a hard time, telling her he thought he could beat her.
Mary, never one to back down from a challenge, convinced Cale to run in California with her. They spent 3-1/2 months training, then headed west. Unfortunately, neither of them qualifi ed, but Cale only missed by eight minutes. Quite impressive for a first-timer. Obviously, Mary passed on the running DNA to her son.
In January of this year the duo decided to give it one more try and set their sights on The Light at the End of the Tunnel race in Washington. They trained hard and in June went to the great Northwest.
Cale qualified with a time of 2 hours and 58 minutes, while Mary ran it in 3:56.
Twenty years after she first ran in Boston, Mary will be going back to do it all over again. This time she gets to bring her son with her.
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