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2010 Walk/Race to Remember 5K & 1 Mile Fun Run By Lionel Green - The Reporter Published March 25, 2010 The fourth annual 2010 Hospice of Marshall County Walk/Race to Remember not only broke records for attendance and fundraising, but is also building up a roster of Alabama record holders for the 5K run as well. The March 6 race produced two new state record holders for their age divisions, according to staterunningrecords.com. Add them to the one in 2008, and the Hospice of Marshall County 5K now has three state record holders.

The race is run on a USA Track and Field-certified course at Snead State Community College in Boaz.

The new state record holders from the March 6 race are:

• Mac McCrady, of Brownsboro, in the 78-year-old age division, with a time of 26 minutes, 19.48 seconds; and

• Emory McDougal, of Boaz, in the 89-year-old age division, with a time of 57:32.61.

McCrady also owns state 5K records in the 73, 74 and 77 age divisions.

In the March 2008 Hospice of Marshall County 5K, Claudis Hawkins, of Rainbow City, broke the state record for 90-year-olds with a time of one hour, 17 minutes, 19.44 seconds. Hawkins, by the way, is also the 92-year-old state record holder.

This month’s race featured nearly 1,000 registered participants and raised an estimated $25,000 for Hospice of Marshall County, a nonprofit agency based in Albertville that provides care for the terminally ill.

Susan Sanders, public relations manager for Hospice of Marshall County, organized the race and is thrilled when runners in the agency’s 5K break state records.

“It just validates what we said about the whole race to begin with,” said Sanders, an avid runner herself. “It’s a race for everyone. It’s a race for the dedicated runner and a race for the novice.

“Particularly, since the records are being broken by runners in the senior community, it shows there’s something out there for seniors to stay active.”

Honoring Lori Hall Cook

I participated in my first 5K at the Hospice of Marshall County race. I wrote a column March 9 describing my painful 39-minute, 13-second ordeal.

I mentioned my favorite moment of the race involved a mom and a cute little girl running together in front of me. The girl was asking her mom so politely if they could walk a little ways, emphasizing her request with the most sincere “please” I’ve ever heard a child utter.

The mom actually e-mailed me, writing, “I’m pretty sure the cute kid and her mommy in your article was my daughter and I. She had planned to only run the 1 mile and at the last minute decided to go with me without any training.”

The mom is Emily Slaton, a third-grade teacher living near Geraldine, and her daughter is 9-year-old Danielle. Emily explained they ran on Team Lori to honor the memory of her sister, Lori Hall Cook, who died at 23 from Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“My daughter Danielle is named after her middle name, and she reminds me so much of her,” Emily wrote. “What a wonderful blessing to run together in memory of my sis. It was an amazing experience. 

“My sister, Lori Hall Cook, was told on her 22nd birthday she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She was stage 4 with no symptoms and was otherwise a very healthy young woman. The only reason she found out she had cancer was from a small, painless lump in her lower neck.

“She died within two years, on May 1, 2002, just short of her 24th birthday. She endured two separate rounds of different chemo regimens, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. In the end, a small virus shortly after her bone marrow transplant was more than her lungs could take. She suffered a blood clot from the antibiotics given to her to combat the virus.

“My daughter was only 2 at the time. She and Lori had a very special bond. She shares a lot of Lori’s characteristics. Lori was a tough little lady and never backed down from cancer. She looked it straight in the eyes and fought so hard to beat it from the very beginning.

“I try to encourage Danielle to fight like that in all that she does. That every day of her life will be worth fighting for, and she has to give it all she’s got. Life is never easy, but in the end if she does her best and follows God’s will, it will be worth it. This race didn’t bring Lori back, but it kept a part of her spirit, her will to finish, and her fight for life alive in all of us that ran in her memory.”

Emily noted her daughter Danielle ended up beating her by 23 seconds. I looked up Danielle’s time. She ran the race in 38:56 and finished 18th among the 50 girls in her age group. She even beat me by 17 seconds.

Trust me, I know how hard it is to run 5 kilometers without training.

I commend Danielle for finishing the race as fast as she did.

She must be a fighter just like Lori.