RUNNING AND LOVE ARE THEMES OF THIS WEDDING
Athletes tie the knot at running-themed wedding.
Invitations printed on race bibs. A group run the morning of the wedding. A ceremony in front of a race start line. Suits and gowns paired with running shoes.
Iram Leon and Elaine Chung, the president and vice president of Austin Runners Club, tied the knot Aug. 18 in a ceremony themed around running, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows them. They met, after all, through the Austin Runners Club, while both were training for a marathon. But their story gets better. Leon, who used to play ultimate Frisbee, won the overall title at the Gusher Marathon in Beaumont in 2013 – while pushing his daughter in a stroller. Even more remarkable, he’d been diagnosed with brain cancer in November 2010, after collapsing at a birthday party.
A marble-size tumor is entwined in the memory and language hub of his brain and has “invisible tentacles” that even doctors can’t detect. The average survival time for the disease is four years; only a third of patients live five years
‘We wanted to show our guests a good time while showing them some of us.’ — Iram Leon
after diagnosis.
Today, though, Leon is 38. At his most recent checkup in June, doctors told him his tumor is stable. He’s still running regularly, and if you didn’t notice the horseshoe-shaped scar that snakes across the side of his head you’d probably never guess he had cancer. He’s fast. In 2015 he finished the Boston Marathon in just over three hours and 10 minutes on a cold, windy and rainy day.
In 2015, ESPN aired a short documentary about Leon. He ran more races with Kiana in a stroller, but when she got bigger she began running on her own. She’s fast, too.
The wedding featured vows written by the bride and groom, along with plenty of personal touches, such as Chinese and Mexican food to honor each of their cultures. Daughter Kiana, now 11, pretended to forget the ring, then dashed off to get the family dog, who carried it in.
Chris McClung, a running coach and co-owner of Rogue Running, officiated the ceremony, working in as many running puns as possible. He wrapped things up with this: “With the power vested in me by the state of Texas and getordained.org, I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Guests played lawn games, worked puzzles and at one point joined a group stroll through the gardens of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
“We wanted to show our guests a good time while showing them some of us,” Leon says. “I was marrying Elaine, not an idea or an institution.”