Runner honors mom’s memory

#Middlebury #Marathon

By MARJORIE NEEDHAM

Mary Tesch of Middlebury runs in the UCONN Health Half Marathon in June 2019. Tesch will run in the Eversource Hartford Full Marathon Oct. 12 to honor her mother’s memory. (Capstone photography)

Mary Tesch of Middlebury, a fourth-grade teacher at Long Meadow Elementary School, is running the Hartford Full Marathon Oct. 12 to honor the memory of her mom, Claudia Perry of Winsted, who died unexpectedly in April.

Tesch, 51, has run marathons in the past. She ran the Pittsburgh Marathon twice. She ran the 2018 Pittsburgh Marathon despite having just injured her calf muscle while training for it. “It wasn’t pretty,” she said.

She decided she would never again run a marathon. Then, while her mom was hospitalized last winter, she was browsing on her phone and came across the Connecticut Triple Challenge, a three-race challenge that culminates with the Hartford Full Marathon. She told her mom, “I’m going to run all these races for you.”

Then her mom unexpectedly died. Tesch decided she would honor her mom’s memory by running those races for her – despite the fact she hadn’t been able to train as she normally would.

So she set out to run a 10K in May, a half marathon in June and the marathon in October. Tesch said she hasn’t done as well in these races as she has in past races, but she’s not about to quit.

This year’s marathon theme, “You can, You will!” reminds her of her mother’s “I can, I will” way of facing adversities in life. That inspires her.

“Quitting wasn’t an option for her,” Tesch said. Her mom persevered – through breast cancer, a radical mastectomy, chemotherapy, a divorce. One of her sons suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle accident; another committed suicide. But Perry never gave up.

Tesch doesn’t intend to give up either. She has finished marathons in 4:37, but that was when she was at the peak of her training. She hopes to finish the Hartford marathon in under six hours, the cutoff time for completing the race.

She said her biggest challenge is to stay strong mentally and physically. “I’m just not as strong as I was in the past,” she said. She expects she will have to walk part of the course and that’s OK. The marathon will be emotionally challenging, too, since she is running it for her mom. The motto that will support her emotionally is “I can, I will, I am mom strong,” she said.