Edison Peña back for another try at marathon

Edison Peña, who last year described his running during 69 days while trapped in a Chilean copper mine as being "an active participant in my salvation,'' has returned for a second attempt at the New York City Marathon on Sunday -- this time "because I have to show that I can do this, that when we fall down, we need to rise up again.''

Peña, like most of the 32 other miners dramatically fetched from the mine while the world watched on television, continues to deal with the ordeal's aftermath.

"It's true many of us don't have jobs yet,'' Peña, now 35, said through an interpreter in a brief news conference attended by a fraction of the media crowd that met with him before last year's marathon. "That's not how we thought it was going to be.

"A lot of us have psychological issues to address, a lot of us suffer from insomnia, but something that is really crucial to convey is that the impact of being trapped in the mine, we're really feeling after we got out of the mine. It's hit us now.''

He declined to go into depth about "the challenges. Suffice it to say that I have gotten help and declared a truce with the problems I've had. I'm fortunate to have a team of therapists, and I feel pretty good.''

He went through a time when he felt "divided in two, a normal me and a me that was a gorilla, and that I needed to control that gorilla. So that time was really, really hard. Really dire.''

A year ago, Peña's uplifting tale of having jogged through tunnels of the collapsed mine -- when "I was saying to that mine, 'I'm going to outrun you until you're more tired than me' '' -- caught the attention of marathon officials. Originally invited as a guest to the race, he asked to run.

He finished, despite a bad left knee, in 5 hours, 40 minutes and 51 seconds, and race director Mary Wittenberg immediately issued an invitation to return. But when she read of Peña's difficulties last month, she contacted the Chilean consulate to discuss the issues with Peña's doctors. "What came back, essentially, was that Edison needs this,'' she said.

"The last year has been very difficult,'' Peña said. "I had a lot to process, everything that had happened. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also continued to run, to illuminate my path. What a runner feels after running, that runner's high, is so satisfying and really helps dissipate my problems. Running, but especially the wonderful feeling after running, is very therapeutic to me.''

Just like last year, he said, his only goal is to finish the 26-mile, 385-yard race. "Actually,'' he added with a sly smile, "let me amend that: I wouldn't mind winning, either.''