Maureen Bowen was in Hawaii last January when she got the Ballistic Missile Strike Text

After losing 100 pounds, completing a half marathon in all 50 states, running three ultra-marathons, suffering from two different types of cancer, enduring two surgeries, several rounds of radiation and six months of chemotherapy, the Maui half marathon was going to be her big comeback race and suddenly, with the ring of a text message, she thought her world was coming to an end. A text on her phone alerted her to a ballistic missile strike that seemed inevitable at the time...She took up running to improve her health. “I didn’t do my first half marathon until I was 42,” she said. After finishng her second half marathon in 3:15 she got the bug. “At that time, I wasn’t crazy, as I say I am now. I would do two half marathons in a year and think that was a lot, and now, if I don’t do two in a weekend, people look at me like ‘what’s wrong with you?’” Then she was on the beach in Waikiki with other tourists when the text messages started. “Everybody’s phones went off, and we kind of looked at each other like ‘is this for real?” So she gathered her things and started searching for a place that seemed safe. Little did she know but it was a technical error and no missile strike was coming. The next day in Maui she walked the entire half marathon with a friend. She has four more states to go to complete her second round of a half in 50 states.

posted Tuesday April 3rd