CAPE ELIZABETH – A fancy breakfast and relaxing morning may be common for some couples on their wedding day, but not for one local couple.
Acquaintances for more than two decades but companions since the 2008 TD Bank Beach to Beacon 10K, Ellen Honan and Dick Curry of Portland will tie the knot Saturday after this year’s race.
“We will run the Beach to Beacon, and get married at 2 in the afternoon,” said Curry, a senior adviser in information technology at Anthem. “There’s going to be a bit of scrambling after the race.”
Honan, a teacher in the Yarmouth school system, said she feels the same nervousness for this year’s race as she did for her first.
“This is my third Beach to Beacon and I’m more nervous about the race than I am getting married,” she said.
Curry’s brother has always been better friends with Honan, but both knew very little about each other. Until 2008.
“I’ve known Ellen for 25 years through my brother but I never knew she was a runner,” Curry said. “When I was warming up with friends before the race (in 2008), I saw Ellen and she told me she was nervous for the race.”
Honan and Curry’s prerace consultation may have seemed like a quick check-up and nice hello at first, but once he knew she was nervous, that prerace discussion wasn’t over.
“(Curry) was the first person I saw when I finished,” said Honan.
And a postrace conversation wasn’t the end.
“We talked after the finish, but one day I was running in Back Cove and saw Ellen,” Curry said. “Then I asked if she wanted to run one day and we just started running after that.”
Both said their relationship is based on running, which was a factor in their engagement.
“A few weeks later he asked if I would go on a run with him and that’s how it all started,” said Honan.”
Honan and Curry got engaged in October, and both thought it would be fun to get married on the day of the Beach to Beacon.
On Saturday, Curry will run in his 12th Beach to Beacon and Honan will run in her third.
They will take their starting places for the race at 8 a.m., six hours before the start of their married life together.
Staff Writer Austin Pollack can be contacted at 791-6384 or at:
apollack@pressherald.com
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