She started running during COVID lockdowns. Now she’s running the Boston Marathon

One of the thousands of athletes preparing for Marathon Monday is Karen Mejia, a 39-year-old social worker from Honduras who started running during the pandemic. She moved to Boston at the age of 16 and has been here since. GBH Morning Edition host Jeremy Siegel met up with Mejia during a training run to talk about her journey to the marathon. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Jeremy Siegel: So we're running in the Arboretum right now. Is this one of your favorite running spots?

Karen Mejia: Yeah, I think this is my favorite. It's amazing, it's beautiful. It'll give you peace of mind. There's no traffic.

Siegel: Why did you decide to start running?

Mejia: Well, it was really hard to be in lockdown. The work that I do is really stressful. And I usually made my transition from work to home walking through Park Street. Our office is right on Beacon Hill. But being home and being a mom and, you know, everything changed, and I didn't have that transition. So I started walking and then I felt that that wasn't enough. So I started running.

Siegel: Do you remember the first day that you ran?

Mejia: I did. I think it was in April. It was really hard. I didn't even make a quarter of a mile.

Siegel: And so now today you're getting ready to run 26 miles. How do you feel about yourself, looking at that transition, that transformation you've had?

Mejia: Yeah, a complete transformation. I was blessed to run a half marathon last year with Stride for Stride, which is a running team that we have and they sponsor one of the races. That was the first time I ran and I registered for running something. One of my dreams had been running the Boston Marathon, but it is different when you see people running and you're like cheering and you don't know the training that they go through. This has been a transformation on everything — eating, sleeping, taking care of yourself. You have to put in time and you have to be intentional on doing that.

Siegel: For most people thinking about this, I think it's just wild to go from not being able to run a quarter mile, just a couple years ago during the pandemic, to running the most famous marathon in the world.

Mejia: Yeah, it is. I can’t believe it. Every morning when I wake up and I prepare myself to go for a run. It's still in my mind that it is going to be possible. Is it possible? And so I'm still like, I think I'm dreaming, and now I'm very nervous because the time is right there, a couple of days away.

Siegel: What makes the Boston Marathon itself specifically special for you?

Mejia: I think, it is just the fact that I am coming from a different country. I love Boston. I feel that I belong to Boston. My kids were born here. I feel that this is where my identity is. And so I think it's just so special to see so many people and to see the first woman [Bobbi Gibb] who ran the Boston Marathon for the first time. For me, that is really impactful.

Siegel: You're from Honduras. You're running with the group Stride for Stride, which helps immigrants, people of color, low-income people buy bibs for races. Running on the whole, at least in the United States, is a very white sport recreationally. What has been your experience with the sport and also, why is it important to you to be running with a group like Stride for Stride?

Mejia: It is important because in the Latino community, we don't have that drive of running or doing a sport. You see so many adults, you know, playing soccer, but they don't really take care of themselves. I feel that the Latino community doesn't understand the impact that any activity will make in their life in the long run. And so coming to Stride for Stride and actually having a team of people there who think like me, who can take care of themself, who support each other, who speak the same language. It has been an amazing time for me.

Siegel: So when you when you run together, when you say, speak the same language, do you mean literally speaking another language while you're running together? You mean a culturally different language?

Mejia: I think it's culturally. We do speak Spanish, but we have people from Guatemala, from El Salvador, Colombia and getting to know the terms from different countries is amazing.

Siegel: What's your pre-race preparation like? How's it going to be in those 24 hours before and that 24 minutes before?

Mejia: So there's a lot that is on my mind. I hope I can accomplish my pre-preparation. So one of the fun fact about me is that I have celiac disease so I cannot eat gluten. People are like, "are you going to eat pasta? Are you going to eat dinner? Carb loading, carb loading." And I am thinking of having a really good pizza, gluten free pizza. And just sleep well the night before. Getting into the bus and doing all of those things that we have to do, getting there at the starting line, I think stretching and warming up before I take off for the long run.

Siegel: Well, Karen, I'm so excited for you. Congratulations and I'm looking forward to checking in with you after the race to see how everything goes.

Mejia: Thank you. I'm excited. Thank you for this.

Check back in with GBH 89.7 Monday morning, when Siegel will be reporting from the marathon.