CityView Magazine

Steve's idea to run the race. No bombs and no mayhem, but they never would have never predicted how that particular race would end. At the finish line of Steve's half-marathon distance run, he went into cardiac arrest. Marsha somberly recalled that she was still running when her iPhone rang at mile 22 when she answered and heard: "Is this Marsha Kouba? Where are you at?" She knew then that something was terribly wrong, but she did not know that at that moment they were calling to inform her that they were performing CPR on Steve at the finish line following his collapse – right in front of the medical team. Moving over to the curb in disbelief to process the information, so many things were running through Marsha's mind simultaneously as she waited to be picked up from a race volunteer, before being loaded up into the ambulance with her long time running partner and love of her life. As you know, this story ends well. Steve was revived in four minutes and they spent a week in the hospital, and while he still runs, he has scaled back considerably – an ongoing marital conflict, as you might imagine. "As a runner, it's hard to have something yanked away from you," expressed Marsha, reflecting back on her own past forced break from the sport. Though the incident for this orthopedic surgeon was purely an electrical glitch, Steve is a picture of great health but no longer ventures out on runs alone. And also at Marsha's insistence, he might occasionally walk some of those miles during his last few half-marathons. For that harrowing race, Steve's finisher medal takes on special meaning. It was delivered to the hospital later by the same man who had started CPR on him at the finish line. Finding humor during this alarming event, Marsha said she was reading email in the hospital and noticed one in the in box, from the Runkeeper app, that Steve had busted his run time. The Runkeeper app on his phone had stayed running all the way to the hospital inside the ambulance, showing their route on the screen display, forever logged into the digital realm. Gotta love technology. The Roaring Twenties TickeTs $ 100 AN ELEGANT PARTY HELD IN THE EVENING TO BENEFIT THE PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN sATURDAY, mARCH 8, 2014 eMBASSY sUITES, fAYETTEVILLE Dinner - Dancing Raffles for fabulous trips to include New york & south beach miami Sponsorship packages available online at www.ccpfc.org or call (910) 867-9700. Tickets go on sale January 6, 2014. soiree save the date-1a.indd 1 50 | January/February • 2014 11/6/2013 9:07:04 PM The making of a runner Marsha has always been a runner, but she really began this journey in 1988 after her son was born 25 years ago. She began running in the early mornings before Steve headed off to work. Her first marathon was the Virginia Beach marathon in 1991. Keith Gardiner, Marsha's running mentor, taught her the ropes of running starting at the beginning and then through that first milestone marathon. "From that point on, my next focus was to try and qualify for Boston," Marsha said. "It's the only one of two races you have to qualify to run in – something most people might not know. The other race is the Olympic trials." Upon qualifying for her first Boston Marathon in 1996, Marsha admitted that she was pretty much hooked on the sport of running. Along the way, she kept meeting people setting the state-to-state goals, and that is when the seeds took root for her grandiose plan. Browsing through the marathon guide with complete ratings, Marsha began to plot her path of marathons, one state at a time. As part of her plan, she vowed not to visit a state twice, selecting the races that appealed most to them beginning with the smaller, Northeast states. Next, they moved onto tackling the Midwest. Hawaii and Alaska were among some of the last races near the end, making it a destination vacation for the entire family. After completing their 50 States goal, the couple then went back to do some fun races that they had missed along the way. All of Marsha's race medals are framed in specially designed plaques gracing the walls. "Through it all, it was one of the most amazing adventures filled with wonderful places we saw, and the wonderful people we met along the way," exclaimed Marsha. "Every state had something special

• Cover