Jacqueline Gareau’s victory on April 21, 1980 would have been incredible just on its own merits. At the time, the 27-year-old Montrealer was by no means a professional athlete. She’d been an out-of-shape smoker until getting hooked on running six years earlier, and didn’t try a marathon until 1977. Gareau’s talent was undeniable from the start (she placed second in her first marathon), but in early 1980 she was still just training in her spare time while working at a hospital. When she made it to Boston for the first time that April, Gareau was taken so lightly that she wasn’t allowed to line up at the front with the elite runners, forcing her to zig-zag through the crowd to catch up.
So imagine everyone’s surprise — and Gareau’s joy — when she not only went toe-to-toe with the elites but pulled away from them and crossed the finish line in a record-breaking 2:34:28. Cinderella story! But then imagine her despair when she saw someone even more unknown than she was — some 27-year-old Cuban-American named Rosie Ruiz — being crowned with the laurel wreath for winning the women’s division.
A few of the top athletes immediately became suspicious when they went to talk to Ruiz and found that this person who had just shattered the Boston Marathon women’s record did not appear to be an actual runner. She didn’t have the body of one, didn’t dress like one, and didn’t even seem to know anything about the sport. Another red flag was that Ruiz didn’t appear all that tired for someone who had supposedly just run for two and half hours on an unseasonably warm day.
Eventually, Ruiz’s entire ruse was uncovered. As the other runners suspected, she was not one of them. She’d cheated her way to a Boston qualifying time by hopping on the subway during the 1979 New York City Marathon, where she “finished” 11th. In Boston, she managed to sneak her way onto the last mile of the course unnoticed a few minutes before Gareau got there. This was difficult but not impossible in an era when chip timing had yet to be introduced, the Boston Marathon attracted far smaller crowds, and fewer than 5,500 runners participated in the race (compared to 30,000 these days).
It took about a week for Ruiz’s Boston Marathon title to be handed to its rightful winner, and 25 years for Gareau to receive something else she deserved — the satisfaction of breaking the tape at the finish line in downtown Boston. Gareau was named the grand marshal of the 2005 race, where a pace car carried the 52-year-old to the end of the course and she ran the last 100m to finally get the first-place finish she’d earned a quarter century earlier.
Hebrews 12:1, says, Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.
We are all striving for the prize. We are endeavoring to reach Heaven’s sweet shores some day. Some days, the road seems steep. Other days it seems easier. But, walking with the Lord every day is important.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. I would counter that with, the destination is reliant upon the journey. There are no short cuts afforded, there is no substitution for running the race in full. We only make it to the finish line, by following the guidelines set forth in the inspired Word of God.
Ecclesiastes 9:11, states, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”
We are not running a race to get to a natural finish line faster than the rest of our brothers and sisters.
We are striving to make it home, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, step in step with each other, helping the collective body of Christ cross the finish line together.
