BOSTON (WHDH) - Two sisters’ dream of running the Boston Marathon was put on hold after the race was canceled this year due to the coronavirus, so they got creative and completed the course on horseback.
Jess Halliday and her sister, Tanya, trained for months under the Cam Neely Cancer Foundation before learning the race had been scrapped.
Jess is a cancer survivor and had to undergo surgery two weeks ago to have part of her lung removed.
“I can’t run right now, but my main career, my passion my horses can help me do it,” she said. “There’s a saying, ‘Horses give us the wings we lack.’ At this point, I guess he’s giving me running shoes too.”
The sisters crossed the Boston Marathon finish line on Boylston Street while riding horses.
They stopped at all the major mile markers to keep the horses from getting too tired.
“And then we rode them in,” Jess recalled. “We wanted to take that right on Hereford and left on Boylston.”
Tanya says she is so proud of her sister and how she fought cancer.
“In 2018, when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was devastating for our entire family, but the way that she has handled it with such class, with such grace, being so strong, so supportive of others, has been so amazing,” she said.
The sisters hope to run the 26.2-mile course in the future.
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