On Jan. 16, nearly 330 Team Ewing runners participated in the 2011 P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon and Half Marathon in Tempe, Ariz., the largest group the team has had in its seven years in the race.
Team Ewing won first place in the GET FIT Challenge Corporate Large Division in this year’s race—a friendly competition designed to get companies to train together. Close to 200 Ewing employees ran the race, joined by family members, friends, and Ewing customers and vendor representatives.
On the eve of the race, Team Ewing runners received some encouraging words from Matt Long, a 17-year veteran of the New York City Fire Department, a Sept. 11 first responder and a marathoner and Ironman triathlete. In December of 2005, Long was run over by a charter bus and given a five percent chance of survival.
“If you don’t challenge yourself in life, you exist the way I did (after the accident). I was about 130 pounds, I was depressed and I wasn’t setting goals for life. I wasn’t trying to move forward,” he said.