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Runners in Iraq Face Chilling Race Conditions to Connect With Loved Ones

By Spc. Daniel Bearl  

It was cold in Northern Iraq the morning of the Honolulu Marathon.

Runners in the Honolulu Marathon in Iraq faced a chilling 36-degrees-Fahrenheit morning as they set out on the run. The day remained overcast with the high temperatures reaching into the mid-50s in the afternoon. (U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Daniel Bearl, 25th ID Combat Aviation Brigade Public Affairs.)

As runners gathered in the dark hours before dawn to receive their bib numbers, race volunteers stamped the ground and blew on their hands, their fleece jackets and caps doing little to combat the just-above-freezing air.

The runners, all service members and civilians living and working in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, clustered near the race registration tables to sign in and store personal belongings as the gray light of pre-dawn seeped over the eastern horizon.

While many of the runners were veteran marathoners, over half of the entrants were first timers, creating an air of anticipation over the run.

"I don't really know what to expect," said 1st Lt. Clayton O. Carpenter, with 3-25 Aviation, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade. "I've never run a marathon before. Me and my buddy just kind of decided to run it about a week ago after we got to the unit. We're just kind of taking things as they come."

For many that had run before, though, the race was against their personal best.

"I'm just going to try to do better than I did the last time I did a marathon about a year and a half ago," said Maj. Keith E. Besherse, an aviation operations officer with the 25th Infantry Division.

For veterans and first-timers alike, a common challenge to the race was finding time to prepare because of busy schedules and the demands of deployed life. Many did what they could despite the challenges, though.

"It takes a little more dedication to practice running [in Iraq]," said Sgt. 1st Class Wayne A. Davidson, with 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion headquarters, 82nd Infantry Division. "Sometimes your schedule conflicts with training."

Gradually, as the horizon grew pink and orange with the rising sun, the runners collected around a stage near the starting line to stretch and warm up. The 25th Infantry Division's Tropic Lightning Band performed as they prepared. Just before starting, many of the runners participated in an organized warm-up session with Hawaiian-themed music, which helped lighten the crowd's mood.

The stage stood on a bed of gravel and tan dust with a backdrop of a sprawling, dusty field scattered with patches of dry vegetation. Behind the crowd of runners tall concrete blast barriers, the outer wall of a military housing area, cast long shadows in the morning sunlight.

The starting line lay stretched across a black asphalt road that stretched northward.

By start time the chilly morning had warmed slightly to 36 degrees Fahrenheit.

As the last few minutes before start time slipped away, the runners massed at the starting line, ready to face the grueling 26.2 miles that lay ahead of them.

The course they were preparing to run traced a path along the roads of a U.S. military operating base just outside of Tikrit, Iraq. Stretching just over six and a half miles, the runners would have to run to the course's turn around point and back to the finish line twice in order to complete the race.

The road conditions along the route ranged from freshly paved to gravel and sand, but the runners could look forward to water points along the way offering water, Gator Aid, energy bars and a high dose of motivation.

When the signal was given, the line broke and a flood of bodies poured onto the road, charging down the marathon's first long stretch.

By the first turn around, it became clear that the men's top finisher spot was hotly contested by two Soldiers, Spc. William Smallwood and Staff Sgt. Brian Caldwell, who moved ahead side-by-side at a brisk 9-mile-an-hour pace.

The dead heat continued until just before the race's end, when Smallwood began to slip behind.

"We were neck and neck right there up until the 22nd mile," Smallwood said, "until I fell apart and had to catch up."

Smallwood, an infantryman from Company C, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, would not prove to be so easily beaten, though. Just within sight of the finish line, he was able to pull out of second place to complete the marathon with a top time of 2 hours, 53 minutes, 23 seconds.

"About mile 24 I regained strength and came up with the win," Smallwood said.

The success didn't come as a surprise to him, though.

"All of my boys back at [Forward Operating Base] Warrior, I told them 'too easy, too easy,'" Smallwood said with a smile. "This is what I do. I run."

Smallwood, originally from Spokane, Wash., said he has been running since he was 13 years old and has competed in over a dozen marathons.

Leading the women runners was Maj. Beth Hoffman, a signal officer from 25th Infantry Division's headquarters company. Though the women's race wasn't as close as the men's, Hoffman's finishing time of 3:40:55 was a personal best.

"I beat my last time by a minute," she said after the race.

This marathon was Hoffman's third, but it had special significance for her.

"It meant a lot that we're running for the soldiers that have lost their lives over here," Hoffman said, referring to a Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors fundraiser, which was conducted in conjunction with the marathon.

As part of the fundraiser, runners could volunteer to run on behalf of fallen service members in order to raise money for programs to support their surviving family members.

Hoffman ran for Staff Sgt. Stephen A. Bertolino, who was killed in Iraq in November of 2003.

Smallwood was also running for someone, though not a fallen comrade.

"I'm a grandma's boy," he said. "I grew up with my grandma and she supported me 100 percent. I ran this one for her and all my friends and family back home."

Though they each finished top of their categories, both Smallwood and Hoffman expressed that training for the marathon was difficult while dealing with the day-to-day stresses of a deployment to a combat zone.

"Finding the time [to train] because of work and being busy is difficult," Hoffman said.

Smallwood's experience was similar.

"You know, with missions and being out here, you really don't have enough time to get in any serious training for anything," Smallwood said. "You're constantly going out on missions, and it's just whenever I have time I just go and get a couple miles in."

But despite the difficulties, both found enough motivation to push through the race.

"It was actually a more comfortable run for me," Hoffman said, "because I'd done the course so many times preparing. It was nice to go out and actually run on a course where you had been already."

Hoffman said she also enjoys distance running because it gives her time to think.

Smallwood's motivation is more visceral.

"It's the pain, you know," Smallwood said. "I will say this is one of the most grueling sports ever. You know, there's no timeouts. There's no quitting. There's no stopping."

"How many people can say they ran a marathon in Iraq?" he added with a grin.

As the runners came in across the finish line, each was greeted by a cheering crowd of volunteers and received a seashell lei with a Honolulu Marathon finisher's medallion. Scattered around the finishing area were tables with fruit and drinks, buses with running heaters to help cold runners warm up and even a masseuse to work the kinks out of the finishers' legs.

Of the 175 entrants, 162 finished the marathon. Each runner was also considered an official entrant in the Honolulu Marathon and their times were sent back to Hawaii for inclusion in the race's finishing times list.

Overcast skies watched the last of the runners as they brought the race to a close. As the morning wore into the afternoon, gray clouds kept the desert sun at bay, keeping the day at a brisk 56 degrees.

Perhaps in the chilly streets of Iraq a war was being fought, but at the marathon's finish line was a cacophony of cheers and jubilation. As leis were draped around one finisher after another, one could almost see imagine the tan, Iraqi sand as the sands of Waikiki and the scrub brushes and trees that dotted the roadside as the tropical greenery of Kapiolani Park. But a world away, the race in Hawaii was still hours from starting.

Surrounded by friends, volunteers and fellow service members, the runners were brought a little closer to home while honoring their fallen with the sweat, strength, resolution and determination befitting the memory of a warrior.

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