Richard W. Rodriguez
It’s 6:45 on a brisk, 32-degree Thursday morning in January — in Texas we call that a miserable cold snap. The sun, having hit snooze one final time, is considering a peek above the horizon.
Liz Ming is finishing up an 11-mile run.
Just another start to the day before the 39-year-old heads to the office. Ming is an audit partner, specifically in private equity, for the accounting firm KPMG in Fort Worth.
“I would say we're together five mornings a week,” Ming says of her running group led by running coach Jerry Johnson, who runs Jerry’s Running Club. “It's great. Never a dull moment. Interesting conversations.”
It’s a great little mix of people. Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker and City Councilmember Macy Hill are among the members.
“We're all kind of always training for a different race and, so, maybe I'm not training [for a race] but a friend is, and she needs a buddy to support her on her training program.”
On this morning, she says, Johnson had them do an hour of hill repeats — that is, a running workout that involves sprinting up a hill and then jogging or walking back down. It’s relevant for what they’re all preparing for right now: the Cowtown Marathon, the annual race and fitness festival on Feb. 22-23 centered at the Will Rogers Memorial Center. The race is noted — more like notorious — for its hilly course, including a brutal stretch up the Paddock Viaduct on the North Side heading south toward the Tarrant County Courthouse.
Ming and her husband, Bryan Woei Ming, are running the Cowtown Challenge. Ming is doing the 10K with oldest daughter Molly, 12, on Saturday and the full marathon on Sunday. Bryan Ming is doing the 5K with daughter M.E., 10, and the full marathon on Sunday. (The Mings’ youngest, son George, 8, can’t run with a broken ankle.)
At the marathon, Ming will be trying to best a personal record of 3 hours, 28 minutes.
The Cowtown will be Ming’s 10th marathon, which includes the 2022 Boston Marathon. In addition to the Cowtown and the holy grail in Beantown, Ming’s other runs of 26.2 miles were in Houston, New York, Sun Valley (Idaho), Chicago, London, Mount Lemmon (Arizona), and Dallas.
Ming has also completed the Cowtown 50K Ultra and the Ironman Chattanooga. An Ironman is a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike, and a marathon. A total distance of 140.6 miles.
That’s commitment.
“I’m trying to run all the majors,” Ming says of the marathons. “I have two left — Berlin and Tokyo.”
One can either qualify for those as an elite runner or be picked through a lottery. “It’s very hard to get in,” she says. “So, I'm just going to keep trying.”
Running the iconic race in Boston was “truly one of the coolest experiences.”
She and her running partner, Meredith Garcia, a teacher at Paschal High School, set out to qualify together. The two have been running together for 10 years.
“That was kind of always the goal,” Ming says. “It would be so fun to train and qualify together, but it's really hard for two people to have a great race on the same day.”
It was Garcia who had the good day that day. She qualified, while Ming suffered a torn tendon in an ankle. Ming had to find another race, in Sun Valley, to qualify, which she did despite having to run by herself.
“Not a fun thing to do,” she says, “but we made it and got to run Boston together.”
As part of her training for the Cowtown, or any other long race, Ming will work up to three, 3-hour runs.
Ming, who was raised in Dallas, didn’t run until her freshman year at Texas A&M. Ming has bachelor’s and master’s from there in accounting. But Ming had no real running experience — no high school cross country, nothing. She says she dabbled in the summer between high school and college for fitness.
At A&M, one of her new sorority sisters, a former high school cross country runner, invited her to run with a group one morning.
“And I'm, like, ‘Oh, that's what you do for fun? I guess,” Ming jokes. “If that's what I have to do to meet friends around here.”
They had begun running regularly when the same friend suggested they do the Houston half marathon. “I guess. Sure,” Ming recalls saying.
“So, we started training, and she was like, ‘Hey, I actually really think we could just do the full.’”
By January, having just begun running that August of her freshman year, Ming had completed her first marathon.
Like the most addictive substance, you don’t just do that stuff — running a marathon — once. Like Forrest Gump, you just keep going.
Next thing you know, you’re 39, you’ve run 10 marathons, no telling how many halfs, you’re switching out shoes every six weeks, and running at absurdly early hours of the morning.
And loving every minute of it.