Every morning, Marcia Horn Noyes ’82 wrote in her journal: “I will run a marathon with Bob Greene.”
It didn’t matter that Noyes wasn’t a runner or that she had never actually met Greene, Oprah Winfrey’s personal trainer. She was determined.
Noyes shared her story of triumph, commitment and success with countless
readers in Chicken Soup to Inspire the Body and Soul. Now, she writes inspirational stories for Kids’ Pages, a family magazine based in Denver, Colo.
As a Lamar freshman, she decided to make a television newsroom her classroom. “I showed up at KBMT-TV looking for a job. I wanted to be in the thick of things.” The crackle of the police scanner was her constant companion for more than three years at Channel 12, the ABC affiliate, where she was a reporter, camera operator and occasional anchor.
She ran sporadically during college, but, then career and family filled her time.
At 24, she was a branch sales manager in broadcast television equipment sales, but after her first child was born, her family had moved to Houston where she wrote freelance newspaper articles. Her husband’s job with ExxonMobil soon took the family from Houston to Corpus Christi, New Orleans and, eventually, Denver.
While in Corpus, she became inspired by the 1996 book Make the Connection by Greene and Winfrey. Her dream of running a marathon resurged.
Committed to that goal and encouraged by her husband, Mike, she walked at 5 a.m. every day. She imagined hearing Greene’s words of encouragement as if he were walking beside her. “During my first week of walking more and eating better, I lost five pounds,” she said in the Chicken Soup article. On a whim, she thought she should share her dream of running a marathon with Greene, so she wrote to him at the Oprah
Winfrey Show. Five days later, she got a call from a producer who asked that Noyes stay
in touch as her training progressed. The idea of having to be on television while still wearing a size 22 kicked her into higher gear. “I immediately laced up my shoes and logged five miles that day,” she said in the article.
“I walked in the beginning. Then, I started running from light pole to light pole. Eventually, I was running three miles every day,” Noyes said. Every month, she sent Oprah’s producer an update. “As the months passed, the weight came off. I even ran my first 5K.” By 1997, she met Greene at an appearance in Denver. Noyes learned he hadn’t received her letters. It was then she decided to run a marathon with or without
Greene. Her friend Terri said she would run with her.
“In June 1998, weighing in a 158 pounds, I stood with Terri at the starting line of Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn.” She finished the race with tears of joy.
Four months later, she ran a second marathon, this time with friends she had met
online. One had contacted the Oprah show. The “back-of-the-pack” runners were escorted by a TV crew the entire way. At mile 17, Greene showed up and ran alongside Noyes until she finished the 26-mile race.
She appeared on Oprah’s show and was featured in Runner’s World magazine, although her fastest marathon was 5 hours and 19 minutes. But for Noyes, it wasn’t about being in the spotlight. She doesn’t see her story in Chicken Soup as about weight loss but, rather, about achieving a goal, about “raising the ceiling of your dreams.” After the book hit bookshelves, she was bombarded with hundreds of emails, many from people seeking encouragement. She replied to every one.
After running six marathons, Noyes’s emphasis is on other goals. “My focus isn’t on running; it’s more on the magazine. It’s more on the chase. I learned that I could do anything.”
As director of marketing and head staff writer for Kids’ Pages, Noyes’s positive messages reach 75,000 families. But most satisfying is that her determination has taken at home. “They are amazed at their mom.” Now, all three of her children dream of attending Ivy League schools. And why not? They’ve seen Mom go for her dreams.
