Stan Baker wasn’t well-trained for the Denver Half-Marathon Sunday, but he made up for his lack of preparation with more motivation than most.
Baker decided to run the race after his son, Steve, was temporarily paralyzed when he broke two vertebrae in a swimming pool accident Sept. 19. Before the accident, Steve had been planning to run the Denver Marathon, which was held concurrently with the half-marathon.
Stan Baker, a formerly avid marathoner who hadn’t run a step in four years before making the decision to run for his son, wore his son’s bib number as well as his own.
“I brought it home for my boy,” said Stan, a former Denver narcotics detective who got choked up talking about his son.
Wearing a halo brace, Steve was standing at the finish line when his father arrived in 3 hours, 28 minutes, 18 seconds. A month ago, Steve faced the possibility of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He’s an in-patient at Craig Hospital, but he was able to walk with his father at mile 10.
“When he came by, I dropped the crutches, put my arm around him and we went about 100 yards together,” said Steve, who plans to run next year’s marathon with his father.
Nuta Olaru also shed tears at the finish, although she couldn’t explain why. A 2004 Olympian for Romania, the Longmont resident was the top women’s finisher in Sunday’s marathon with a time of 2:42:18.
She ran the race strictly for training, but when she saw friends at the finish line — 1996 New York City Marathon champ Anuta Catuna and her husband, Dumitru Pop, who coaches Olaru — she got weepy.
Olaru, Romania’s top finisher (13th) in the 2004 women’s Olympic marathon, failed to qualify for the Beijing marathon won by compatriot Constantina Tomescu-Dita.
“I don’t know. I look (at) my friend and cry,” said Olaru, one of several elite Romanian runners who train in the Boulder area. She lives with Catuna and Pop.
The men’s marathon winner was Jynocel Basweti, who hails from the same province (Nyanza) in southwestern Kenya as Barack Obama’s father. Basweti, who trains in Albuquerque, finished in 2:22:13, three weeks after winning the Quad Cities Marathon in 2:18:04.
Joel Hamilton of Lakewood, a recent graduate of Colorado School of Mines who is training for the U.S. Half-Marathon championships in January, won the men’s half in 1:10:40. Loring Watkins of Littleton was the top woman in the half, finishing in 1:24.
Race officials said 1,753 finished the marathon and 3,914 ran the half-marathon. Another 996 ran the marathon relay.
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
