It was April of the year 2000, and I registered to run the Cleveland Marathon and wasn’t going to let my recent divorce hold me back from running and racing. I was a single mom with a full-time job, and full responsibility for paying for his daycare, diapers, and all that went into caring for him as his residential and primary parent. Running kept me happy, healthy, and sane.
The marathon was a short six months after I was finally able to get Joe to move out of the house, and go ahead with the actual divorce proceedings. It took longer than I had wanted it to, more out of a lack of motivation on Joe’s part than anything else. I don’t think he wanted it to be over, but the simple truth was that because of his alcoholism, he had burned through most everyone in his life, and he had nowhere to go. He didn’t come into the marriage with anything but his clothing and a dresser, and we didn’t accumulate anything together except debt. Since I had married Joe in Vegas a blistering two and a half weeks after we met, the one and only (and most wonderful) reason we were absolutely meant to be together was to bring Jake into this world. Once that was accomplished, we had nothing else. Our little house on the westside of Cleveland was dubbed “the dollhouse” by my mom. It was tiny and cute, and I kept it clean. I didn’t care that it wasn’t in the best neighborhood in town - it was mine and I was happy to make it a home for my little family, which was now getting even smaller.
It was in October, about six months before the marathon, that Joe had made arrangements to move out of the house while I was in Marco Island, Florida with Jake at my parent’s time-share. It was good timing since they had a few weeks booked every October, and I could spend time away with Jake.
I took Jake down to the beach and watched him marvel at the biggest sand box he had ever seen in his short thirteen months on this planet. As Jake played, I looked out at the ocean and thought about life for us from here. I privately pondered if I would ever find someone to love, who would not only love me, but love Jake too. I asked the Universe if I could have some help in finding someone and then quickly picked Jake up, wiped the sand from his hands, and carried him back up to the condo, which was on the 7th floor and had a great view of the beach. When I got inside, my mom was out on the balcony with her binoculars, looking at something on the beach near the area where Jake and I had just been playing. When she saw that we had come back she quickly waved me over to the balcony to show me what she had been looking at. “You have to see this! Come over here and look at this wedding on the beach—it’s beautiful!”
I’m freshly divorced with a baby in diapers, and my ex-husband is moving his crap out of my house back in Ohio, probably at the same time that she and I were standing there on that balcony. I told her I didn’t want to see the wedding, and left the balcony shaking my head at her.
Let’s fast forward to the day of the Cleveland Marathon, shall we? Bright and early that morning, my boyfriend dropped me off at the starting line where I took my place with about two thousand other runners in anxious anticipation for the start of the race. The starting line is a sea of naked legs in running shorts, and the nervous energy is palpable. Once the gun goes off, and we all take off running, the jitters melt away and there is no place I would rather be.
Per usual, however, I had to pee, so I took an immediate detour at the first sight of a port-o-potty at the 3rd mile of the marathon. They were lined up next to each like a dirty, blue plastic oasis.
I exited the port-o-pot with my lighter, happier bladder, and began running again. I was trotting along, looking down at the road in front of me, when I realized there was someone running beside me, and a voice was asking,
“Is this your first marathon?”
My initial thought was, ‘Oh, brother.’
I told him, “No, it’s my fourth.”
We began to chat and he told me that his name was Frank and that he was up from Columbus to run his first marathon as a result of what could be construed as a dare. We were running along and talking about ourselves. I told him that I was just divorced, and about my son Jake—perhaps to see if he would sprint away? Frank was tall, lean and muscular, with a clean shaven head, and when I looked at him I couldn’t help but think that if Mr. Clean and Vin Diesel had a love child - this is what it would look like. I also thought that I could always test drive…I wouldn’t have to buy.
When we reached the 13 mile mark I panned the crowd for my friend, Chrissy, who had planned to meet me there and run me in. She had already seen me approaching long before I saw her. With a knowing look, she jumped into the race, and immediately introduced herself to Frank. I had started the race that day with a tampon in, but it was at the very end of my period, so in the port-o-pot at mile three, I took it out and tossed it away. I didn’t want it in there sucking out any fluids from my body if it wasn’t completely necessary. All of a sudden on the course, I felt a strange sensation that told me it may have been a mistake to take that tampon out after all. Sometimes having to deal with running and periods can be a very slippery slope, and I worried that a gusher would soon be cascading down my leg in a horrible and embarrassing stream of red. The only thing that would put my mind to rest was to go in and “check the oil.” I told Frank that I needed to check something and that he shouldn’t look. He saw me slip my hand into the front of my shorts, and didn’t look away as I put my finger inside and pulled it out to look at the result. Everything was good to go, thank God! Chrissy (who could tell that something was brewing between Frank and I) was the first to acknowledge it by saying, “I bet you thought you wanted to date this girl until you saw her do that!”
Frank didn’t skip a beat and replied, “After seeing that, I don’t want to date her—I want to marry her!”
At the finish line, he found someone with a pen and paper, and handed me his email address as he said: “We should train together sometime.”
When I emailed him a couple days later, I said that I assumed he wanted to do more than just train with me and he answered with, “You are correct.”
I broke up with my boyfriend and Frank and I started dating each other exclusively. When I went down to visit him in Columbus for the first time, I did my usual snooping about in his little apartment. I saw a framed photograph of some people that looked like they had been married and were posing with family members on a beach, with the water and sun setting in the background. It was a beautiful picture with a very happy bride and groom, as well as some children and Frank. After looking at it for a second I said, “Hey, I know this beach! That’s Marco Island.”
Frank said, “Yeah, it is. How did you know that?!”
I told him that my parents had a condo at the Surf Club in Marco and we went there every year in October. I told him that I was just there, in fact. He just stood there and looked at me in as if I had grown an extra eyeball. He said,“This picture was taken in October two doors down from the Surf Club. It was at my brother’s wedding.”
Whether a person believes in fate or in God or the Universe having a pre-determined plan for us, the fact that Frank and I are together is a great argument for the fact that these things are real. My mother had watched the wedding that Frank was in on the very beach where each of us had separately looked out into the water and asked to find the love of our lives. Within six months of making those requests we were both standing in a crowd of thousands of people at the Cleveland Marathon and found each other.
We got engaged three months after we met and decided that we would begin trying to get pregnant right away. Frank was thirty-six years old at the time and had no children from his first marriage. I was thirty-one, and we weren’t sure how long it would take for me to get pregnant, so we went for it. As it turns out, it took no time at all, and because I was pregnant by July, we bumped up our wedding plans to October. We knew that people would think we were only getting married because I was pregnant, but we didn’t care. We both knew that bets were being taken on how long our marriage would last because neither of us had the best track records and the over-under was set at about six months.
Frank would be the first to tell you that he burned through women, and he also had a strict policy to never date anyone who had children. Yet, there I was, this person with a baby in diapers, who burned through the men in her life, and four months pregnant at our wedding. It couldn’t have been more beautiful.
It seems we have gone the distance in every way, because the over under for how long we would last has been long forgotten, as we have just celebrated our eighteenth wedding anniversary! Since then I have run about sixty-six more marathons and Frank has done zero. I still don’t know if that’s a compliment or an insult. I guess he got what he wanted and doesn’t ever need to do that distance again.
About the Author
Liz Ferro is an author, a mom, wife, speaker and the founder and CEO of Girls with Sole. As a child growing up in foster care, Ferro experienced sexual abuse but found solace in fitness, particularly swimming, biking and running. The empowerment gained from sports led her to create the non-profit organization Girls with Sole, which has received extensive national attention for its innovative and successful program curriculum.
Ferro has completed more than 70 marathons; two 50K Ultras; five Ironman Triathlons; and countless road races and triathlons - including the epic and iconic Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in San Francisco, California. She completed a 26.2 Marathon in all 50 states, as well as on the Great Wall of China.Ferro has been featured on the NBC TODAY Show, in SELF, Runner's World, and Family Circle Magazine. She is the recipient of the 2018 Smartwomen Award for Progressive Organization; 2017 Community Changemaker Award from the Ohio Alliance To End Sexual Violence; 2016 Medical Mutual NEO Pillar Award; 2015 Perspectives Women Who Excel Award; and the 2015 Symbol of H.O.P.E. Award.
Ferro is the author of Girls with Sole, Chameleon Girl, and the newly released Finish Line Feeling.