Kate and Josh Hester run with their two kids, Alice and Paul, on Tuesday at Bowdoin College. Adam Robinson / Times Record
Editor’s note: This is the first story in our new series “Everyday Athletes,” in which we talk with people who are out and about enjoying some outdoor recreation. Sports is all around us and we’re on the lookout. If you know someone who would make a great “Everyday Athlete” please contact sports editor Bill Stewart at bstewart@centralmaine.com.
BRUNSWICK — It’s harder for basketball players and football players to get out and practice their crafts during the COVID-19 pandemic with social distancing guidelines in full effect, as well as closed parks and fields.
Runners, however, have been keeping stride over the last few months with trails, sidewalks and at-home treadmills still available for use.
For Brunswick residents Josh and Kate Hester, running has been “a way of life” for years, since high school and even middle school, in Kate’s case.
The two ran cross country and competed in track and field in high school and then met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology their freshmen years and continued to run together. Neither competed on teams in college or beyond but ran a few times a week, every week.
They’ve run half-marathons, five-milers and a few other road races, with the last being a five-miler in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Hesters now have two kids, Paul and Alice.
“The peak of mileage was probably while we were training for that half marathon and Paul was probably 18 months or so, so it was before he figured out he could ask to get out of the stroller and walk around,” Josh Hester said. “We hit the perfect window when he was happy to sit in the stroller for an hour for a long run to train. Mileage now, we are casual runners so we are probably at 5-20 miles a week. Here, now we are kind of competing with rollerblading and biking.”
Kate remembers the last road race they ran in 2018 fondly.
“We did a five-miler in Cambridge with this guy in a stroller. It was fun, pretty low-key. It was for a charity.”
Kate said that the family just got a trailer for their bicycles, so now the family has been going on longer bike rides. Josh says he runs more than Kate, but neither has slowed down.
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