In honor of Ray

I'm starting this blog so that I can begin to share all I've learned over the past 11 years of running marathons. Here you will find my occasional thoughts, ramblings, cajoling and rantings about running and life. Today, for my first blog, I want to introduce you to my cousin and my friend, Ray Kalusa Jr. or Little Ray as I have always known him. I'd been running marathons for about 4 years when Ray told me he had started running so that he could get back in shape, which is pretty funny because he was alway athletic, playing softball, football, baseball and really anything that could keep him around sports. Having grown up idolizing him and his exploits in radio, it was a bit humbling actually to have him ask me to be his "coach". But I took him on and began telling him as he struggled through the first extended miles to get to his first 10k, then half marathon, that soon enough the miles he was doing would seem easy, even laughable as he stretched his running muscles. He ran 5k's and 10k's at first, and when he found the half marathon (or did it find him?), I told him he was destined to run marathons. He laughed and said he was quite happy to stay with the half. We ran the Las Vegas Half marathon together a couple of times in the late 1990's and the joke we shared before each one went "So tell me again why we are getting up at 3:30 in the morning to get on a bus and drive 13.1 miles into the desert where it is 30 degrees outside and then run back into Vegas so we can get a tshirt...oh yeah and we are happy to pay for this privilege...." I kept telling him that now that he had mastered the half, that the only place left to go was to climb marathon mountain....that once he did one, he'd keep on running them, because that's what marathon runners do, they keep on running. In 2001 he ran the inaugural OKC Memorial Marathon as his first. One that will always be special.

On November 21, 2007, Ray died on the 10 freeway in California, driving to see his Mom for Thanksgiving. He was a testament to what marathon running is about, seeking out opportunities to test himself in a way that was intensely personal and that connected him with the world he lived in. I'm certain that he, like all of us who run marathons, discovered a part of himself in the miles he ran to train and race that only he understood. The ability to dream big dreams, to set out on a path that few have run, and to persevere in the face of adversity. He climbed Marathon Mountain, and now, he is enjoying the view....He ran long, he ran hard, He ran well...