Vicksburg trio set to tackle world-famous marathon

Tom Lilleyman had a broken foot. Beth Krapac suffered a panic attack at the finish line. Bryan Register was just plain slow.

All three Vicksburg residents, over the past year, seemed to have forces beyond their control that were conspiring to keep them from their goal of running the Boston Marathon. Somehow — and sometimes with a little help from their friends — they kept them at bay.

Lilleyman, Krapac and Register are among more than 32,000 entrants for Monday’s 119th annual Boston Marathon, one of the most prestigious running events in the world. Although they’ll split up once the race begins, they’ve traveled and spent the weekend together as friends in a fitting tribute to a group whose paths to the race and backstories have been intertwined for months.

“Since coming here, I’ve spent 30 hours a month with these people,” said Lilleyman, a native of England who is the British liaison officer at ERDC. He’ll return home when his assignment expires at the end of May. “To go with them to Boston is great. I don’t think it would be as fun if I didn’t go with them.”

The trio is part of a tight-knit running community in Vicksburg. Lilleyman and Register set the goal of running Boston last summer and set about qualifying. A third man, Don Cherry, was part of their pact as well but took a job in Ohio late last year. He’ll also join the group in Boston.

Almost immediately, challenges began to arise for Vicksburg’s Boston-bound runners.

Register’s best marathon time was around 3 hours and 46 minutes — nearly a half hour slower than the time needed to qualify for Boston. He got faster as he trained, but by December was still well off the mark.

He went with Lilleyman to the Baton Rouge Marathon in December with the intent of running the event’s half marathon, then changed his mind at the last minute and decided to run the full distance.

It was a good move.

Register ran Baton Rouge in 3 hours, 22 minutes and 30 seconds, 2 ½ minutes better than the standard for Boston. In one day, he’d gone from wondering if he could achieve a life’s goal to a made man.

“I wasn’t at the point in my training where I should have run a marathon. I was going to use it as a gauge,” Register said.

He’s hoping to better that mark in Boston.

“They say the crowd is going to be crazy, and it’ll get you so jacked up that you’ll run faster than you need to,” he said. “I’ve been training with (local runner) Kristi Hall on weekends. She’s helped me with my pacing. I’m hoping to PR, but I’m not going to be disappointed if I can’t.”

Lilleyman, the 2014 Run Thru History winner who can complete a marathon in under three hours, had no problem with speed. His challenge was overcoming an unexpected and potentially devastating injury.

The Brit suffered a stress fracture in his left foot in December. He still ran marathons in Baton Rouge and New Orleans in just over three hours, but struggled with his training through the late winter and spring. He said he’s recovered from the injury enough to compete — and would still do so at Boston even if he hadn’t.

Lilleyman also plans to run in the London Marathon next week.

“I describe Boston as Disneyland for runners,” said Lilleyman, who has run London before but will be making his Boston debut. “There’s only six proper professional races in the world, and this is one of them. It’s really high on my bucket list. Even with a broken foot I would have done it.”

The injury has changed Lilleyman’s goals, though. Instead of running for a personal best time, he said he’s planning to enjoy the trip and the experience a bit more.

“It’s just going for the fun,” he said. “I’m not that fussed about it. I’m more upset because I have one month left over here and I missed three months of running with my friends.”

If running together for hours on end in the Vicksburg National Military Park hadn’t solidified the friendship between the three runners, an extraordinary act of kindness did.

Krapac ran the Boston Marathon in 2013 and 2014. She was just beyond the finish line two years ago when the Tsarnaev brothers’ bomb exploded, killing three people and injuring more than 250.

Krapac was not hurt that day, but mental scars have lingered.

She returned to Boston last year and made it 25 miles and change before stopping in her tracks. Seeing the final stretch of the race caused her to have a panic attack.

“I just choked,” Krapac said with a sheepish smile.

She shook it off after a few moments and finished the race, but her time of 3:59:51 was a few minutes too slow to automatically qualify her for the 2015 race. She was happy to have run Boston twice, if a bit bummed out not to return again, but Register was determined to give her another chance.

He sent an email to the Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the race, explaining Krapac’s situation. He got no response, so he sent another email.

And another.

And another.

After three months of regular emails, he finally heard back from the BAA. They’d taken Krapac’s case under consideration and given her a special exemption to run one more time.

“He’s my hero. That was so sweet,” Krapac said, before joking around with her friend. “Do you know how many miles I run because I can’t let them down? They’re going to make me a T-shirt that says ‘Slacker’ if I don’t come through.”

The kinship between the three runners was evident as they talked about their plans for the weekend in Boston.

Register, a history buff, was excited to see some of the city’s historical sites associated with the Revolutionary War. Lilleyman, whose country lost that war, wasn’t as enthused.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to see how the Americans beat the British,” Lilleyman said as Register and Krapac laughed.

For Lilleyman, the marathon also represents one of the final verses in this chapter of his life. He’s spent the past two years living in Vicksburg, but will return home to Britain in May. Running Boston has been one of the things he’s looked forward to the most during his time in the States, and doing it with some good friends is a treat.

“I get quite emotional at the end of races anyway. I’m hoping everyone else is going to be around me, because I suspect I’m going to be a wreck,” Lilleyman said. “This has been a lot of work. This is the last time our whole group is going to be together for a race like this.”