“I’m an athlete from the shoulders up,” Cherryholmes said.
Losing weight is not something that comes easily for her so
prior to leaving for Nepal she “gained” weight.
“I couldn’t get skinnier because I’m not good at that,
so 90 days before the marathon I bought a 40-pound
jacket, almost like a bomber jacket, which has sand bags,”
Cherryholmes said.
By the time it was time to leave she just took the jacket off
and lost the 40 pounds she wore every day, allowing her to
know what it was going to feel going up in altitude once on
Mount Everest.
WSU Alumna Pushes Herself to Keep Climbing
By Kelsey Haynes
For one woman, taking part of the Tenzing Hilary Everest
Marathon meant running in her first marathon and taking
a break from being a single, working mother to be closer to
the mountain.
Most people, however, do not participate in their first
marathon on Mount Everest, located in Nepal,, but Kay
Cherryholmes, self-proclaimed compulsive optimist and the
United States representative for the Tenzing Hillary Everest
Marathon did just that.
At 9:30 a.m. July 14, College Hill United Methodist Church
will host a talk and slide show presentation with Kay
Cherryholmes re-telling her day by day experiences over
the 17,000-foot trek. Admission is free and everyone is
welcome.
Cherryholmes, who previously had a career in social work,
works for Cox Business. She received her bachelor’s in social
work from Wichita State in 1995.
“I’ve always wanted to run mountain races since I was
in college,” Cherryholmes said. “About eight years ago, I
started to do Pikes Peaks Ascent, which is a half-marathon.”
“I find my connection to God on a mountain, and I
get recharged for life,” she said. “You just find a lot of
inspiration on a mountain.”
Cherryholmes wanted to do something out of her comfort
zone and out of the country. She was considering the Great
Wall of China Marathon, but when she found out about the
Everest Marathon, the mountaineer knew right away where
she was going.
In May 2010, Cherryholmes was on her way to Nepal for the
two-and-a-half week marathon.
Once there, the other runners were asked how many
marathons they had run. Everyone soon found out it was
marathon number one for Cherryholmes.
“I felt I was way out of my league,” she said. “Some of these
runners had sponsors.”
Cherryholmes said she was trying to spend time on the
mountain, not really wanting to win the marathon. With so
much emphasis in the West about body size and where you
live, she felt she wouldn’t have to think about any of that.
On the first day of checking in at Kathmandu, five little girls
wearing school uniforms passed Cherryholmes and told
her “Namaste” and all was well. Until one little girl started
giggling and told Cherryholmes, “You so fat.”
Cherryholmes asked a Nepalese Sherpa to translate what
the girls said. He blew up his cheeks. Cherryholmes knew
that she in fact had been called fat half around the world.
“You are fat Ms. Kay, you know that right?” asked the
Sherpa and soon after told Cherryholmes that they had
never seen a “fat” runner before.
Still, after laughs, sadness, happiness and moments when
Cherryholmes had to push herself to continue on, she was
the last runner to get to the cut-off breaks and the last
person to finish the marathon.