Unlikely photo finishes a common recurrence
Catherine Lisle made the turn on to Broadway Avenue last April with tunnel vision, sound and sight blurring on the final straightaway of the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon, her feet numbing to the pound of pavement, her focus locked on the back of one single racer.
“Having any kind of reserve left at the end for a marathoner is usually just that gut,” Lisle said, “trying to dig anything out of there, even though it’s pretty much empty.”
When distance runners reach a certain level of exertion, researchers discovered it can trigger the release of painrelieving endorphins that cause a temporary sense of euphoria. Couple that science with the physical toll of 26.2 miles, and the thrill of chasing down the race leader, and Lisle says, “your body is almost at this point of threshold where you all of the sudden believe you can do things that you normally wouldn’t believe.”
It’s really the only explanation for a rare phenomenon seen in two of the last seven women’s marathons to honor victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing; Lisle winning the women’s race by just a second in 2010, and then a hundredth of a second in 2016. A pair of unlikely photo finishes.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Lisle said, “or if there’s a deeper meaning behind it all.”
Dating back to 1897, only twice has the men’s Boston Marathon decided by a second or less (1988 and 2000). The New York City women’s marathon’s slimmest margin in history is three seconds (2004). Mike Luchsinger, managing partner of Event Southwest, a company that provides chip timing services for marathons in Dallas and Oklahoma City among others, said, “it’s very rare” a race winner comes down to a photo finish.
While runners at all levels value their “kick,” an ability to finish strong, it isn’t always so simple in marathons. Lisle didn’t plan on using a last-minute rush to earn those wins as she attempted to maintain a roughly seven-minute mile pace throughout. “So ideally, there’s close to nothing left in the tank at the end,” she said, “just because I don’t want to have all this energy left over that I could have used for the previous two hours.”
In Lisle’s case, the formula is akin to ... seek and destroy. KFOR-TV drone video captured the final steps her 2016 victory. With about 200 meters left, Lisle, a 31-year-old former Oklahoma All-American distance runner, surged past Danielle Hodge, a 28-year-old from Iowa City. But Hodge quickly regained the lead with a burst.
That’s when Lisle had to make a choice.
“The fear is not that I’m going to injure myself while sprinting,” she said. “The fear is that I’m going to have something left that I thought maybe I could have done more . ... You train so long for this race, what’s 100 meters left sprinting?”
As both runners reached the finish line beside bleachers of screaming onlookers, the endorphins kicked in, the noise blaring — “I had no idea she was so close to me,” Hodge said, “had anybody been there to say, ‘Hey, she’s right there,’ I wouldn’t have even heard them” — and Lisle crossed the tape first. Relief swept across her face, because of course, “The faster you get there,” Lisle said, “the sooner you can stop.”
Although unlikely, history has a chance to repeat itself starting 6:30 a.m. Sunday for the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon. Lisle will be back to defend her title in what will be her seventh-ever 26.2-mile race. If it were up to her, though, there wouldn’t be another nail biter, even though she’s proven with a flair for the dramatic.
“I couldn’t believe it was happening,” Lisle said after the 2016 race, “again.”