Running marathons for his mother & father

By Bill Vossler

bvossler0@outlook.com

After years of training, Vincent Charles of Isanti qualified for the Boston Marathon. In this photo, he is running in the Boston Marathon held in April.   Contributed photo

Seems like every step 65-year-old marathoner Vincent Charles takes nowadays is in memory of someone else. 

“In school I was a track sprinter,” said the Isanti man who is also a Deacon at a Catholic Church in Cambridge. “I ran the 100, 200, 400, and some relays, the mile a few times, but not long distance.”

That changed in 2013 when his father suddenly died. “I realized I wanted to run long distance for my mother while she was still alive. I’d never run anything long before March 14, mom’s birthday, but I signed up for Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth. So a month later after dad died, I started running long distance, and started training for my first distance run, Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth.” 

He didn’t realize three months of training was not enough time to really go that 26.2-mile-distance properly on June 22. “But I wanted to do it while mother was still alive.”

To practice, he ran on county roads. “It was a way of clocking up the miles until I could do three 20-mile runs before the race, and then backed down to get ready for the race. I did many shorter runs as I prepared, going up hills, but I didn’t get tired.”

That first marathon was scary, he said. “Not knowing how it would be. I ran it in 4 hours and 9 minutes, and it was actually fun.”

That’s where Vincent started doing more than running during his runs. “My father was an excellent accordion player all his life, and he really helped me a great deal. So then when I ran, I acted like I was playing the accordion, like him. That helped me with my grieving.”

After that, during his runs, road races, and nine more marathons, Vincent thought about other people and prayed for them. “When I began training this year, I decided to make the sign of the cross to traffic coming towards me, something I‘d never done before, a nice long cross, from my chest down to my belly button, and shoulder to shoulder, and asking the Lord to bless the drivers. Maybe the cross meant something to them or not, but that was my way of evangelizing and being drawn close to the Lord.”

Vincent Charles crosses the finish line at the 2025 Boston Marathon in a decent time of 4:18.

Some neighbors joked they thought a driver might hit him. “I told them it was a simple way for me to draw attention to the Lord.”

Vincent said he has run many races. “The only one I’ve ever won was at Stillwater, when I came in first in the 50-59 years old division, the best half marathon I’ve ever done.”

When he received a coffee cup and his first-place medal in the mail afterwards, he realized he’d won. “It was a good hard race. The longer, the harder. Sometimes we use age as an excuse, and I guess winning that race helped me recognize my running ability for my age. I looked back through some marathon age categories information, noting that people of all ages are still running, so they must love doing it.“

Vincent had a curious situation while running his fourth Twin City Marathon. “My cousin Mike was dying of cancer, so it was important for me to do it. We made t-shirts made, ‘Mike Charles Ride to Remission.’ But as I trained for that marathon I pulled tendons in my ankle, but my doctor said it wouldn’t damage anything if I ran. So to pick up the Twin City race package, I wore a boot. The gal who handed it out said, ‘How are you going to run? In that boot?’ No, in running shoes. I had to walk and run to get through it. In the race I was thinking of Mike having terminal cancer, and wearing the shirt with his name, runners and spectators said, ‘You got this Mike. Come on Mike, you can do it.’ They thought I was Mike. That was emotional, because my first cousin was dying, but when they called him by name because of my t-shirt, that was very uplifting.”

Though Vincent ran with others a few times. “It’s nice to have someone to run with, but then you run at different paces, so I guess I’d rather go out alone.”

Winter running is harder, he said. “That’s when I get stuck indoors at times and have to run on a treadmill.”

Vincent put up a note on the note wall, remembering his mother and father. Contributed photo

He said he will continue making the sign of the cross to oncoming traffic while he’s running. “I may get bolder, but not obnoxious or showy. That’s not why I want to do it, but rather take it into public places where they will notice. But I don’t expect anything back from them. It’s non-threatening and non-denominational, and is a good way to lead people to God.”

The Big One--Boston

Most marathoners want to run in the granddaddy marathon of all, The Boston Marathon. “After my second Grandma’s in Duluth, I qualified for the Boston Marathon for my age group. But Boston said even though I qualified, they had too many runners, so I ended up 45 seconds short. They said I should have run faster,” he laughed. “That’s how the system works.”

But he continued running. “One of the most fun marathons is the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon, which starts in Holdingford. It’s a fun run because a good group of people operate it, and run in it, and the pizza at the end is the best. It’s also a nice trail, through the small towns, ending in St. Joseph.”

In 2019 he ran in 3:43. “So I qualified for Boston with that one, too. I was excited thinking of doing it. But then came Covid, so I didn’t get to go again.”

He didn’t give up. “At age 65 in The WhistleStop Marathon in Ashland, Wisconsin, I needed a 4:05 time, or better, and I ran 3:57 so I got in.”

That led him to the 2025 Boston Marathon. “A good trip,” he said. “Lots of family there. And a seminarian parked a car early near the finish line so my wife could park there, which she did.”

Days before the race, Vincent Charles and his family attended church services with family. Contributed photos

“We shot many family pictures, attended some Holy Week masses, and on Friday on the Boston Marathon Name Wall we found my name, along with all the 31,670 runners in the 2025 marathon.” 

On another wall for notes, Vincent put one up to his father and mother. 

“It was neat to roam the Boston neighborhoods before the race, and saw all those old houses. Saturday we went to Rhode Island and stood in the ocean. So the trip was more than just the Boston Marathon.”

Big Day for the Big Race

On Monday, April 21, Vincent rode a shuttle to the athlete’s village. “We congregated into different groups that would start the marathon at different times. Not all 31,000 plus start out at the same time.”

At 10:50 a.m. his group, waiting in the corral, had their starting gun go off, and Vincent began to run the 129th iteration of the Boston Marathon. “This was my 11th marathon, and that morning I’d heard about the death of the Pope, so I prayed for his soul several times. Then I checked my notes so I could pray for the different needs of a list of 300 people I had promised to pray for, as a Deacon in the Catholic Church. Crowds of people were wall to wall, and the college areas were jammed with young people. I saw different kinds of runners, one with artificial limbs and springs to run with, and I was grateful to see how brave he was to do that.”

Deacon Vincent shows his Boston Marathon medal, and is wearing the blue t-shirt in which he ran the race, which says, “I run for my father,“ meaning his earthly and heavenly father. The back has a similar line and photo of his mother, for her and the Virgin Mary. 

During the race, Vincent wore a dark blue t-shirt saying “I RUN FOR MY FATHER,” showing a picture of Vincent and his dad hunting turkey. The back of the t-shirt says, “I RUN FOR MY MOTHER,” with a picture of his mom.

“But those words have a deeper meaning,” Vincent said, “”My father” being God (or Jesus) and “my mother” the Virgin Mary.”

At the halfway mark his wife, children, and grandson met him, and Vincent stopped for hugs. After that, back running when his body started to give out, and his legs tired, “I tried to fight that off. After three miles of that I had a drink at a water station, but kept moving, and said an internal prayer, asking my mom, dad, brother and sister to help me here. At that I got some adrenaline and an uplifting feeling, actually like sometimes when we pray in church. I had that feeling, got energy, my spirit was uplifted, and I had the motivation to pick it up. A runner’s high, I suppose.”

The hardest spot in the 26.2 mile trek is called Heartbreak Hill. “I did the first half of the race good, and at miles 14-17 I got my second wind, and picked the pace back up. 

Then at mile 21 came Heartbreak Hill, the most difficult part of the 26.2 mile run. “I was passing some people at that point. I stopped at the bottom to pray a novena on my head set, and give it to Christ to take care of everything. I got a light tingly feeling, and could pick my feet up better then. That was a real motivating prayer for me. After that I humbly got across the finish line, and had a sense of real accomplishment.”

After the race he said he was tired, but he stopped to talk to other runners. “You’re a family of runners that understand and support each other. My family found me and we had a good time talking.”

He said he isn’t sure what he’ll do from here. “I kind of sense another marathon. If I stopped before Boston, I could say I had done a decade of marathons. But now with eleven? I could do a church fundraiser for number 12. We’ll see.”

He said the medal that he received for finishing in 4:18 at the Boston Marathon was not important. “More powerful and neat was that I was given the opportunity to pray for church family, and spending time in Boston with my family was extremely special. It’s was great, and this big thing in life wouldn’t have been anything without my family being there, and my praying for others. My grandson said, ‘Grandpa, it okay if you didn’t win, or lost, but that you did your best. I’d say that about sums it all up.”