The Boston Marathon began in 1897 with fifteen entrants. The 2026 Boston Marathon had 29,020 entrants, and Jaimie Davis ran with them. What a deal! This is her story.
Jaimie Diaz , daughter of Harold and Dawn Diaz, grew up in Farwell where she ran track and played basketball. In both junior high and high school, she also had to run cross country to play basketball, so she did, which may or may not have begun her interest in distance running. This is the junior high team. She is the one in the middle with the blue tights on.
In high school she ran the 800, mile, and sprint relays. When she told me that, she laughed and added that she was not a stand-out high school runner, but that did get her into running.
Mom and Dad moved to Earth while Jaimie was in college, first at South Plains and then graduating from LCU in 2009. She met her future husband Matt Davis, who is from Hale Center, through her brother Tobe. Matt graduated from Texas Tech and finished an internship in Olton. Jaimie taught and coached in Ranger, Texas, for one year. They married in 2011, and have been in Muleshoe for the past fifteen years.
Jaimie still liked to run, and as time passed she ran six half-marathons. Then Bailey County Attorney Michaela Kee talked her into running the Fort Worth Cow Town half-marathon in 2024 with her. Kirsten Cordova, who had been working out with them, also ran the race.
Well, after that, there was no turning back, and she and Michaela, along with another fellow runner, Bobbie Black, wound up in Las Vegas for the real deal, a 26.2 mile marathon, the Las Vegas Marathon in November 2024. Bobbie ran the Vegas half-marathon and Michaela and Jaimie ran the full marathon.
Now that a real marathon had been conquered, talk turned to the Boston Marathon which was coming up in April of 2026. Based on Jaimie’s time in Las Vegas, Michaela commented that she wouldn’t have to shave off much time to qualify for the Boston marathon. And runners do have to run a qualifying time in a UFATA race in the U.S. according to their age group and gender.
So, that seed had been planted and workouts were run in earnest, and qualifying races were investigated. A race in Washington State, the Jack and Jill Downhill Marathon, came up, and since Jaimie has family up there and downhill in the name sounded helpful, it was chosen. But don’t let “downhill” fool you. The race does start in the mountains, but that doesn’t mean every mile is actually down a hill. The race starts out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains and the finish line is in the small town of North Bend, Washington.
The Jack and Jill race was July 26, 2025. Runners had to wear headlamps when they went through the Snoqualmie Tunnel in those mountains! The tunnel is at the beginning of the race, so everyone started out with their headlamps on, which, no doubt were left in a trail of litter as they left the tunnel! No one wants to run 26 more miles with even a little extra weight and something tight on their heads.
Bobbie, Kirsten, Jaimie, and Michaela proudly wore their medals after they all finished the race, but Jaimie was the only one who ran to qualify for Boston. And she did.
Jaimie has taught for MISD for fifteen years, and is now teaching fifth grade science at DeShazo Elementary. So, at lunch she would run around the campus. She would run 5-6 mile runs with Rose Gloria in the morning before school at the city park. And after school and anytime the opportunity presented itself, Bobbie, Kirsten, Rose, Kamry Cribbs, and Michaela would run with her. She was running 30-45 miles a week with her longest training run 24 miles in a loop around town.
The Boston Marathon is always the third Monday in April, which is also Patriots Day in Boston, a celebration and recognition of the opening battle of the Revolutionary War, appropriate for this very historical city in America. All the more reason for this to be a trip for the whole family to watch Jaimie make her own history in the race. And friends Ryan and Morgan Marricle went, too.
Off they went on Saturday, April 18, only to miss their connecting flight because of weather making them circle Dallas for an hour, making it to Boston late that night. On Sunday, the family and friends went to a Red Sox game while Jaimie prepared for her run. She roamed through the vendors and listened to some speakers at the downtown convention center, but more importantly, she had to personally pick up her bib there to be allowed to run in the race. No one can do that for you; you have to show ID and everything!
The bib is really interesting. It does have the runner’s entry number and corral number-more about that later-on the front, but on the back it has a chip that documents her time and location all through the race! Her fans can then use an app that goes with it that lets them know her location and time so they can jump in the car and chase ahead of her and push through the crowd to cheer her on.
Those fans that would be doing the cheering include, left to right: father-in-law Alan Davis, brother-in-law Clint Davis, son Will, mother-in-law Kathy Davis, husband Matt, daughter Kate, (the runner of honor), son Jack, friends Morgan and Ryan Marricle. Not pictured is Jaimie’s twin brother James. Jaimie’s mom and dad were unable to make the trip, but were cheering her on in front of their TV.
So, Sunday night when everyone reconvened and Jaimie should have been carbo-loading for the race, Matt took Jaimie to a good steak house, and she at least ate the largest baked potato she could get brought to the table along with a small steak. She laughed and said, “Only people from West Texas would come to Boston and eat steak!”
And now it’s Marathon Monday, aka Patriots Day, and time for Jaimie to get to her starting line. Remember I mentioned earlier that the marathon had grown from 15 runners back in 1897 to almost 30,000 runners? How do you organize and deal with that many runners and get them all off and running with a fair starting time? Well, you put them in waves according to qualifying times, and then you divide those waves into corrals and bus them to the designated starting lines.
Then at the appropriate, calculated time, the gun goes off and each corral of runners takes off and that chip on the back of their bib keeps track of them.
And there she goes!
I like this shot because it shows the crowd, the runners, and Jaimie off to the right there in the middle of the picture.
This course covers rolling hills with no true flats to give runners a break, but the Newton Hills are the four notorious hills toward the end of the race, covering miles 16-21. Those of you who have finished a marathon know that at about mile 20 many runners hit a little something called ‘The Wall’ where finishing becomes a classic case of mind over matter; you pretty much have to remind yourself that the finish line is just right up the road and not let your body say die. Heartbreak Hill is the last of those four hills.
I didn’t ask Jaimie if she hit that wall. But it doesn’t matter!
26.2 miles in 3:33.50! Three hours, thirty-three minutes, fifty seconds. Amazing!
The weather started out at 41 degrees and stayed in the 40s the whole race, but they did at least have the wind at their backs. After the race, finishers were awarded their medals and given a foil blanket to ward off that cold wind.
Morgan met her at the finish line and even brought more warmth. Then, that night Morgan cooked dinner for everyone at the AirBnB where they stayed.
These are the trophies brought home.
Tuesday was open for a little sightseeing in Boston, much of it historical, like eating lunch in John Hancock’s counting house and posing with statues, and some, more modern, like finding Cheers of TV fame.
Jaimie said they saw people all over town wearing their medals. Even when they flew home Wednesday, people all over the airport were sporting their medals! She wished she had, too. But wearing the hard-earned medal was only one of the things about the race that stood out for her. She said the whole town shuts down for the race and everyone was engaged and friendly, welcoming all those extra people in town, people who helped with the race, the crowds cheering them on, all 26 miles of the race. The race starts at the Athlete’s Village at Hopkinton and runs through eight more towns before finishing in Boston, and people lined the streets the whole way. Many people in the crowd were even dressed in Revolutionary costumes as they passed out snacks and water in the towns and through neighborhoods.
So, I asked what was next to conquer, another marathon, another Boston? She is now qualified to enter it again next year if she wants to, but since she has been there and done that, probably not. She had to run a 3:30 or less to qualify and ran 3:24, her personal best. Her goal had been to finish Boston in less than 4 hours, so finishing in 3:33 in this much more challenging race, satisfied all her goals. She might run it again sometime, but for now will just enjoy running short distances for occasional stress relief and to just stay grounded.
She has been thinking about doing a trail race instead of a marathon, something she could even do closer to home, like at Palo Duro Canyon.
And if you don’t know what a trail race is, well, stay tuned. Sounds like another story for me to tell.
How cool is this?
Rock on, Jaimie.
Thanks to Jaimie for sharing her adventure with me.
Recent Comments