Archdeacon: Nurse by night, runner by day - Kayla Brown wins women’s Air Force Marathon

She works 12-hour shifts, comes home from work, sleeps a few hours and then trains as an endurance runner before going back to work.

“It’s pretty tough to train,” she said. “It seems like I’m always tired.”

She didn’t think Saturday would be any easier. She was entered in her first Air Force Marathon, didn’t know the course and figured she wouldn’t know many of the other runners either.

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought it would be really lonely out there,” she said with a laugh that soon relaxed into a satisfied smile. “Instead, it was really fun.”

Credit: Tom Gilliam

Credit: Tom Gilliam

She had been buoyed by her sense of purpose: “One of my best friends and her husband are stationed here and my uncle was in the Air Force and once was stationed here, too. I wanted to honor him.”

She was also lifted by the enthusiastic crowd. And if there was any loneliness, it only came because at the back end of the 26.2 mile race she was running by herself — out front.

She was the fastest woman, winning in 2 hours, 57 minutes and 33 seconds.

“It meant something to do this where my uncle (David Miller) once was stationed and my friends (Katie and Kevin Fudge) are now.”

She said she felt a special kinship with the crowd Saturday and that was something several of the other competitors — among the 7,600 who took part in this year’s 29th running of the race — talked about too.

Zach Kreft won the marathon in 2:21:57 and afterward shared some of what he had seen and felt on the course; and how the Air Force Marathon is different than the other marathons he runs.

He grew up in Sunbury, Ohio and ran for Notre Dame as an undergrad and Walsh University while working on his masters. Now he he’s a software engineer living in Columbus.

Although his ultimate goal is to hit the Olympic qualifying time

(2:16) and make the U.S. Olympic Trials, he’s also trying to win the six major marathons that are in Ohio. He won the Cleveland Marathon earlier this year and Columbus in 2023.

He said the Air Force Marathon is “very unique.”

“It started with the flyover before the start, that was pretty awesome. And the guys who paratrooped in with the flag was pretty special.

“Everything was very patriotic. All the flags and ‘Born in the USA’ was playing out on the course.

“And then I think it was about mile 20 where there was the sign remembering the fallen soldiers, something like that. My thoughts were all over the place then. But you run past all these pictures, maybe 100 on each side of people who gave their lives in the line of duty.

“All of this made me proud to be an American.”

Chris Floyd is a 25-year-old pilot stationed at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. It was his first time competing here and he won the half marathon in 1:10:20.

“This might not be the biggest race in the country or the most prestigious, but for an Air Force member there couldn’t be anything more special, more fun, one that means more than this.

“To run under the wing (of the massive C-17 and the KC-10) right before the finish line is really something to remember.”

Credit: Tom Gilliam

Credit: Tom Gilliam

Growing up in the Chicago area, he said he joined the U.S Air Force because “I wanted to serve my country and be part of something bigger than myself. Plus, I think the Air Force has some of the coolest jobs in the world.

“And I’m really fortunate because I get to sit in a cockpit as my office.”

Capt. Jaci Smith, the women’s winner of the half marathon with a 1:16:20 finish, is stationed at WPAFB where she works in the aircraft analysis quadrant.

Coming from Edmond, Oklahoma — and like Floyd running collegiately for the Air Force Academy — she said she enlisted because she also “wanted to be a part of something that was a lot bigger than myself. And the Air Force was a place where I could use my talents for a bigger purpose.”

She came to Wright Patt last October and spent much of the next nine months recovering from the second surgery she’s had on her right ankle, this one to repair a ruptured tendon.

She couldn’t run until June and this was her fourth race since then. The other three were shorter distances.

“I really have a different perspective now,” she said. “When I was younger, I was always wrapped up in performance and how I did. Now I’m just grateful to be running. And anything I do feels like a win.”

Just as competing was for her an affirmation of her recovery and resolve, it was that and so much more for the wheelchair winners: Casey Falkner of St. Joseph Michigan for the men in 1:09:49 and the oft-celebrated Holly Koester (2:11:57) for the women.

Although an auto accident put Falkner in a wheelchair four years ago, it’s given him an unlikely refrain for his new realty.

“I tell everyone I’m in the best shape of my life now while being in a wheelchair.

“Doing marathons enables me to get out of my chair (and into his sleek hand cycle racer). I’m able to go fast and compete while being a part of a community and making friends.

“And it’s helped me prove to myself and others what I can do.”

The 65-year-old Koester has been doing that for 30 years.

An Army captain, she suffered an injury during the Persian Gulf War. A runner previously, she took up wheelchair racing.

She is currently completing her second tour of doing a marathon in all 50 states.

She has seven left this time.

A prominent spokeswoman and role model for injured veterans, she’s in the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame and the Greater Cleveland Sports Hall of Fame.

“I love the atmosphere here,” she said. “They really take care of the wheelers here. There’s a lot of patriotism.”

In fact, it wasn’t that much later that Lady Liberty — two of them actually — walked past where she had made that pronouncement.

Amanda Bokish, whose husband Mark is an air evacuation nurse stationed at Wright Patt, and her friend Caitlin Schultze, who works at Travis Air Force Base, walked past, each dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

They had just run the half marathon.

“We always run in a costume,” Bokish said. “We’ve gone as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, and as characters from Star Wars.”

“And peanut butter and jelly,” Schultze laughed.

“Running can be painful, you want to make it fun,” Bokish said. “You want to make it memorable.”

That was certainly the case for Ian Johnson and Mackenna Helen Curtis Collins.

They were the 10K winners Saturday, Johnson topping the men with a one hour 33:57 finish and Collins leading the women with a one hour 35:44 race. She finished second in Friday night’s 5K event (Stephanie Pierce won the women’s side and Zachary Keeler won the men’s 5K).

It was the first Air Force 10K for both Johnson and Collins and it had some added significance.

“We’re getting married in November,” said Johnson, who’s a Beavercreek High grad and ran his final collegiate year at Wright State after running at Ashland University.

Collins, who’s from Lexington, Ohio, ran at Malone before competing for Wake Forest while in grad school.

They met as undergrads at a race at Youngstown State.

He said his Ashland team knew her Malone team.

“We decided to cool down together after the race,” he said with a laugh.

For him, that’s when things hearted up.

“She was pretty and she was really fast,” he said. “That’s two things that caught my eye.”

She laughed but said she’s not as fast as him.

But she added, that may change down the way: “He’s going to be the one pushing the stroller when we have kids. I’ll catch him then.”

2025 Air Force Marathon race winners