By Danie Koskan
In love and running, sometimes you have to go the distance.
It was the fall of 1993, and 47-year-old Jerry Dunn was in the thick of a year-long endeavor to run 104 marathons when he found himself at the starting line of the Mount Rushmore International Marathon.
It was just another race. Jerry lived by the same schedule week after week: Work four days back home in Indiana, fly out to the next race, run, fly back and start the whole thing over again.
There was little time for anything else — romance included. Besides, he’d been married before, and marriage hadn’t worked out too well.
South Dakota seemed an unlikely place for second chances. But there she was.
Elaine Doll was something of a local running icon, having earned the name “Wonder Woman” for her post-40 athletic achievements.
The two runners exchanged pleasantries. Jerry was smitten. Sure, geography posed a problem, but he wasn’t about to let Elaine get away.
“I figured it was all or nothing,” Jerry said of his dogged determination to woo Wonder Woman.
Elaine eventually agreed to a date.
The fairy tale ending didn’t immediately follow. Elaine soon learned she had bladder cancer, but she didn’t take the disease lying down. She beat cancer. Jerry, however, wasn’t as easy to shake. He wanted to marry her.
Elaine had been widowed and divorced, raised seven children and now relished her newfound freedom. The single life suited her. Marriage, even to a great guy like Jerry, could change all that.
Jerry persisted and changed her mind.
The promise of unconditional love, Elaine said, “was a big draw.”
Less than two years after their first marathon encounter, the couple wed on the run. In true Dunn fashion, they went the distance and ran the Walt Disney World Marathon on their wedding day. Ten miles into their 26.2-mile undertaking, they stopped to exchange vows in front of Cinderella’s Castle.
(Read the rest of this story in Summer ‘09 FACES)
