MHS grads run in Boston race
Joe Mazur (left) and Ben Heuser (right). Photo by Jackie Timoszyk.
submitted by John Heuser
Good friends and track and cross country teammates since middle school, Ben Heuser and Joe Mazur ran hundreds of miles together in and around Manchester before heading to college in 2013: Joe to the University of Michigan, Ben to Duke University. In college, though, neither maintained a regular running regimen. Ben ran occasionally, but mostly played intramural sports and squash with the club team. Joe rowed at Michigan, but a back injury limited his athletic endeavors for the second half of his university career.
After graduating from college in 2017, the friends reunited in the Boston area, where both now work. They decided to room together, and, on a whim, decided they would also run a half-marathon. Ben suggested they sign up for the Boston Athletic Association Half Marathon, held every October.
“I think it was in June or July when Ben brought it up, and pretty much that night I was like ‘Yes, let’s do it’,” Joe said. “I had ample time to prepare for the race.”
Joe trained once a week with colleagues from Dow-DuPont, where he works as a production engineer in a chemical manufacturing plant. He also ran occasionally by himself and competed in a 5-mile race. Ben trained on his own in the Cambridge-Somerville area where he and Joe rent an apartment.
“I did a couple of runs a week, starting at 2 miles and working my way up to 6.5 miles,” Ben said.
But neither Ben nor Joe got close to the 13.1 mile distance they would run on a rolling course that wound along the Emerald Necklace Park System, including a short jaunt through the Franklin Park Zoo and ending on a track at White Stadium.
“You couldn’t ask for better race conditions,” Ben said of the October 7 race day. “It was overcast with the slightest breeze for most of the run.”
During the race, the duo stayed within sight of each other for the first 7 miles, then Ben pulled ahead.
“There was a period maybe between miles 5 and 8 where I felt surprisingly good,” Ben said. “I almost had to hold myself back. I knew I was going to hit a wall at some point.”
A large contingent of fans along the entire route encouraged the runners to keep going with constant cheering. The fans would even call the runners by their first names, which were printed on their bibs.
“That was really cool,” Ben said. “I didn’t expect there to be so many fans.”
Ben said his legs started to feel exhausted at the 10-mile mark. Joe said he slowed down at about the same point: “I started to really feel it. My feet, legs, ankles. If I stopped to walk, I would never start running again.”
Joe didn’t stop, and he ended up finishing in 2 hours, 17 minutes, 6 seconds. Ben completed his race in 2 hours 6 minutes 41 seconds. Each received a cool T-shirt and medal, not to mention plenty of good memories and soreness that lingered for about a week.
“Every step was agony the next day,” Joe said.
Despite that, both runners intend to enter another long-distance race in the not-too-distant future. Besides Joe and Ben, two other recent Manchester High graduates – Jackie Timoszyk and Chelsea Tistle – also live in Boston. Joe and Jackie are a couple, while Ben, Jackie and Chelsea all work for the software company Oracle. Ben works in sales operations, while Chelsea and Jackie (both graduates of the University of Michigan) are account managers in the higher education section. The four MHS grads enjoy seeing each other regularly and appreciate the Manchester heritage they share.
“I had a great support system (growing up),” Ben said of his home town. “Everybody knew who everybody was. That made it easy to go out and do things because you always had people rooting for you.”
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