Member Profile: Lara Hackney

Lara teaches food management and food safety at the University of Hawaii, where a colleague first challenged her to run the marathon in 2024. In keeping with her cheerful and optimistic outlook on life, Lara accepted the challenge and began training with Brian, despite never thinking of herself as “marathon material.” She even returned to the training after an unexpected injury and completed her first marathon in Dec. 2025 with a fantastic time. While she plans to do the marathon again, Lara says that the real reason she keeps coming back to train is the extraordinary community she’s gained. Here’s Lara, in her own words:

In December 2023 one of my colleagues at UH asked, “Do you want to do the marathon?” And I was like, “What? I can’t run, but sure, I can walk.” She sponsored a group of us for the 2024 Marathon so by August of 2024 we were all getting very worried and asking ourselves “What are we going to do? How are we going to train for this?” And she said, “If you’re going to run the marathon and make it through to the end, you have to train with Brian Clarke.” We were like, who’s Brian Clarke? We had no idea.

So we contacted Brian and signed up with him at the start of 2024 marathon training. But I didn’t do the marathon that year, because I fell in November and broke both of my arms on a training night.

However I came back to the training in January 2025 because I thought, I can’t let this stop me. And Brian was wonderful. We talked weekly after I recovered, and he really emphasized the importance of taking it slow. In fact, I came back in January 2025 and have been training with Brian ever since.

In December 2025 I finished the marathon, and Jessie, the person I did it with, was one of my colleagues from UH who finished the marathon the previous year in about 10 hours. Jessie said to me, Lara, I can’t go 10 hours again. So we just walked at a clip of about 16 minutes. We stopped twice and finished the marathon in 7 hours and 38 minutes. 

I’d never done it before, so I just said, if I can do it in under 8 hours, I’ll be happy. Not only did we take 3 hours off her last time, but it was absolutely extraordinary. I felt like I conquered the world. Especially since I’m not a runner. I mean, I did a little sprinting when I was in middle school but that was so long ago.

But I had bad legs. I had recently broken my arms. One of my physical therapists—I went through three of them before I got to the end—kept telling me, “I don’t know if you should do it.” And I kept saying, “I’ll see how it goes.” A lot of people were like, this is the worst marathon ever because we had so much rain. I think it saved me because I was more worried about the heat and I actually walked without water… I forgot my pouch in the fridge. 

But we glided the whole time from the back of Diamond Head all the way to the finish line. I felt so invigorated. Obviously, it had a physical component, but there’s this sense that you did something that so few people do, and that requires so much preparation and so much effort. After finishing and stopping, my muscles went numb.

Beyond the marathon though, the other value of the training for me this last year and a half has been commitment and consistency. I walk my dog ​​constantly and I was always active. But in Brian’s training I feel like I have the benefit of connecting with people. The camaraderie and team spirit are so good. 

To me the BC Endurance community is just amazing. They’re just a great group of people who are so friendly. Everyone is so kind and so concerned about each other, making sure that things are running smoothly and supporting each other. I also think it’s fun that we compete with each other – a simple, healthy type of competition. It’s nice to have so much variety among the different ability groups, and everyone asks each other, “How was it? How was your walk? How was your run?” We share our stories, and I think it’s good for others to hear how we all have different challenges. I think it’s perfect for people who are looking for community and being able to achieve a goal you never thought you could. 

I would consider myself healthier than before. I’d say I’m stronger. My feet don’t hurt anymore. 

We’re not the elite group. We’re not the ones trying to defeat the world. We’re trying to defeat our own goals, our own limits.