Chilean miner runs NY Marathon with sore knee

He wore shorts and running shoes, instead of a headlamp and his boots.

He ran under crystal-blue skies, instead of through coal-black tunnels.

And he ran out of a sense of celebration, not survival.

Exactly 25 days after Edison Peña was pulled out of a Chilean coal mine, he completed his first marathon. Peña crossed the finish line at the ING New York City Marathon in 5 hours, 40 minutes and 51 seconds, despite having to walk most of the final 8 miles of the 26.2-mile course because of problems with his left knee.

"In this marathon, I struggled with myself and I struggled with my own pain," Peña said through a translator after the race. "But I made it to the finish line. I want to motivate other people to also find the courage and strength to transcend their own pain."

Peña's knees weren't the only part of his body that was sore, judging from how many people he high-fived along the course. All through the race, Peña encountered fans waving Chilean flags and holding up signs of encouragement.

Peña and his fellow miners mesmerized the world when they were lifted, one by one, in a capsule during a televised rescue operation after spending 69 days beneath the surface of the Atacama Desert. Life in the collapsed tunnel was desperate for the first 17 days as the miners rationed their water and survived on a spoonful of tuna a day. On Aug. 22, after the miners were discovered, food and other supplies were sent down and Peña began to regain his strength.

That's when he started running. He used pliers to cut his knee-high steel-tipped boots down to ankle height so he could train each morning and afternoon along the rocky, muddy 1,000-yard corridor where the men were trapped. He built up strength by dragging a large wooden pallet that was attached to a cord tied to his waist.

"Running a marathon and being trapped in a mine are two different things," Peña said when asked to compare the experience. "I felt great in the marathon. Being trapped in the mine was a very different sensation. Furthermore, in the mine I ran alone."

Sunday, he ran with Juan Jesus Lopez of the Bronx and Rene Cuahuizo of Elmhurst, two Spanish-speaking members of the New York Road Runners, whom race organizers had asked to run with Peña after he told them he planned to tackle the marathon.

Initially, the plan was just for Peña to be a guest at the event. New York Marathon director Mary Wittenberg had heard about Peña's training in the tunnel and invited him to attend.

"We were thinking, VIP guest," she said. "Have a nice breakfast, sit inside a warm tent, wander out to the start, hold the finish-line tape, maybe drive the course in a car. It didn't strike us that he would want to run, but, to be honest, in so many ways it wasn't a surprise."

What also didn't seem to be a surprise to anyone was that Peña finished, even though at mile 18 he had to check into a medical station to have his knee examined and iced.

Said Peña: "I did think about dropping out, especially at mile 18 when the pain in my knee was particularly intense. But I said to myself, 'I did not come this far, I didn't travel so many thousands of kilometers, to drop out.' And so I kept going."