Running Together, a World Apart

Loved Ones Connect in Race Here, Satellite Marathon in Iraq

Navy lieutenant Maresa Jurczynski will run in the Marine Corps Marathon in Arlington on Sunday while her sister Carla runs the same race in Iraq. (Jonathan Newton - The Post)

Marine Sgt. Chuck Trainer is not a marathoner.

He is a football player, or was, anyway, years before duty called him in February to Camp Fallujah in Iraq for his second tour there. Sure, he regularly runs a few miles as part of his conditioning routine, but a marathon?

"Twenty-six point two miles -- that's something you drive," Trainer half-joked in a phone conversation from Iraq this week. "I'd rather punch myself in the face than go run 26.2 miles."

Yet on Sunday, several hours before 30,000 runners stand in the shadow of the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington ready to begin the Marine Corps Marathon, Trainer will set out on his first marathon in, of all places, the Iraqi desert.

And he's actually thrilled to be running, only because training for the race has helped him stay close to his older sister, Christine Haas, back home in Pennsylvania.

Trainer is one of 208 members of the armed services stationed in the Middle East who are registered for Sunday's inaugural Marine Corps Marathon Forward at al-Asad air base, which is about 100 miles west of Baghdad. For Trainer and others, the satellite race is serving as a medium through which they can connect with loved ones in the United States, especially those who are running the Marine Corps Marathon here.

"I don't know anything about long-distance running," Trainer, 28, said. "As far as I'm concerned, it's just putting one foot in front of the other for longer than usual. But there's diets and a training regimen, so it was Chrissie that I kind of relied on to make sure I knew what I was doing."

Marine Maj. Megan McClung, an avid runner who will participate in Iraq on Sunday, came up with the idea in May for a satellite race for deployed servicemen and women. With the help of Marine Corps Marathon organizers and the Army's Office of Morale, Welfare and Recreation, the MCM Forward will officially be considered part of the marathon here. Each finisher in Iraq will be added to the list of those who cross the finish line in Rosslyn.

Runners in the MCM Forward will twice run out and back on a 6.5-mile course. The final 0.2 of a mile will be completed in a parking lot in the downtown area of the base. While the race course here is lined with various forms of entertainment and other diversions, participants in Iraq won't have the luxury of being distracted from each grueling stride.

"Maybe we'll have some aircraft to look at," Marine 1st Lt. Carla Jurczynski said via phone from Camp Fallujah. "Honestly, it's really, really brown and gray and sandy out here. I'm sure it will be the same up there."

Despite conditions that are less than ideal, including expected temperatures in the mid-80s, Trainer and Jurczynski are eager to run Sunday because both have sisters running the Marine Corps Marathon here. During the last several weeks of training, the race has helped Trainer forge a connection with Haas, and Jurczynski has done the same with her older sister, Maresa. For all four of them, the experience has been therapeutic during a time apart that is sometimes filled with painful uncertainty.

"This will be, by far, the most meaningful marathon I could ever run, and to be running it with Chuck is such an honor," said Haas, 39, of Newtown, Pa. "It's a way of showing him support, and it gives me an opportunity to be his older sister, whether that's with words of encouragement via e-mail or by sending him a care package."