Friend to the End Finishes Marathon

  had been training for June 18 since last year. It was the day of the Mayor's Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska and it was the day Montoya could finally "bury" her best friend, Carol Carter, who died of blood cancer two months ago.

Montoya ran in honor of Carter, and she'll so so again at her next marathon, the Nike Women's Marathon San Francisco on Oct. 16. She'll run the Nike race as a member of Team in Training again.

"This was tougher than practice," said Montoya. "I didn't know it was uphill for 15 miles and I didn't know there was eight miles of the tank trail." 

The tank trail is a rock-strewn road the military uses to move tanks and trucks into wilderness areas around Anchorage.

"I was happy with my time," said Montoya, who finished in five hours and 40 minutes, 20 minutes faster than her target time. 

"The weather was perfect," she said. "It rained the day before the run and the day after the run but on Saturday it was perfect. The temperature was in the low 70s."

Her  only problem was getting enough sleep — and it wasn't because of jet lag. "It was hard to sleep," said Montoya. "At 11:30 at night it was like high noon."

"I didn't want to draw the curtains because I wanted to see the sun go down, but it never did," she said.

"I did run into a lot of (cancer) survivors in Anchorage," said Montoya.

"It felt good to get through the race. There were strangers who were lining the course who were yelling for us and encouraged us to get to the end," she said.  "I was fortunate to finish without an injury."