Fair 48° F

Home > Archive > Jan 3, 2008

Light in the Darkness
After losing his eyesight in his senior year of high school, Adrian Broca needed something.
Broca, who will be running the St. George Marathon for the first time on Oct. 6, runs in several marathons a year, including the LA Marathon and Boston Marathon. Through marathon running, he has found confidence, a job and the love of his life.
One of the people he met while running was Brenda Arechiga, who belonged to a group, the LA Roadrunners, that Broca joined. Arechiga did public relations work for the running group and did some work to highlight Broca's efforts on the marathon course.
From that meeting, the two became close, and they are now engaged.
Broca's goal is to one day run in the Paralympics (a division of the Olympics for athletes with disabilities). To qualify, he has to run a time of 2:46. So far, his best time has been 2:56. At age 31, Broca believes he has only five or six years left to get that time down, and he believes the St. George Marathon could be the key, although he cautions that he is still a year away from breaking 2:46.
Broca ran a personal-best of 2:50:31 with the help of guides from the Southern Utah University cross country team.
Nick Schuetze, of Hilsboro, Ore., won the St. George Marathon with a time of 2:16:42.

---