Once nearly 300 pounds, DFW area runner just finished her 18th marathon at Cowtown
Technically she wasn’t quite 300 pounds, but close enough that on a bad day she feared she might just see that number.
“It was closer to 297 or 298,” she said.
By the time Meghan O’Gorman saw that number on the scale she was well aware things were not ideal. It was around the first of the year, in 2012, that she knew there was a problem.
“I was in a bad relationship, and there was a lot of stress eating,” she said. “I’d go to McDonald’s at 11 o’clock at night. I was eating the wrong foods. And I was not doing any exercise at all.
“Most of my clothes would not fit.”
On Sunday, the woman who once used binge eating as a coping mechanism just completed her 18th marathon when she finished the Cowtown Marathon.
The Mid-Cities native and current Valley Ranch resident also ran the 5k on Saturday with her dad, who was celebrating his 80th birthday. To celebrate, Dennis O’Gorman finished first for his age group.
On Sunday morning, she was with her friend, walking with her at Mile 20 under splashes of sun, but still chilly conditions.
“This is her first marathon, and my hamstrings are killing me,” she said during the race. “Today is all about fun.”
This journey began back near the end of 2012, when she could barely run about one-tenth of a mile.
During one of her first running sessions, she sprained her knee. Not too long after that session, she sprained the knee again.
She went to the doctor, who promptly told her to pick a different exercise.
“The doctor actually told me to stop running altogether,” she said. “That made me depressed because I was losing weight.”
She waited for about a year before she decided to try running again.
O’Gorman went to the gym, and stepped on a treadmill. She ran one-tenth of a mile. Then she walked.
Then she ran another tenth of a mile.
Then she walked.
Then another tenth.
That was the program.
“I really didn’t want to end up with a bad knee again, and that worked,” she said.
By October 2014, she completed her first 5k, finishing in about 37 minutes.
The time really didn’t matter. Finishing did.
Her knee held up, and she was hooked.
She joined a running group, and she had found a positive passion.
A 5k then became a 10k.
“At the time I really thought people who ran the half marathon are crazy,” she said.
Half marathoners aren’t crazy.
Marathoners, however ...
Training and completing a half marathon can be fun.
Training and completing a full marathon is a job.
Her friends convinced her to try a half marathon, which she did in March 2015 in Cedar Hill. It was cold, rainy, hilly, and perfectly miserable. “After I was done I said, ‘I never want to do this again.’”
Not long thereafter she forgot about those feelings of disdain and kept running. “I blame my friends at the Irving Running Club for all of this,” she said.
In March 2016, she completed the Little Rock Marathon in Arkansas. Again, she was unfamiliar with the terrain and the hills. Her knee bothered her most of the way, which meant she had to walk far more than she expected. She finished in eight hours.
By 2018, she was doing marathons quite often and before running the Dallas Marathon that year she forgot the knee brace. Turns out she didn’t need it, and she has run without one ever since.
As of Sunday, she has run 121 half marathons. She has completed 18 marathons, including the Chicago Marathon. She has been invited to run the Berlin Marathon, which she intends to finish. Her goal is to make it to the New York City Marathon.
She has also completed two ultra marathons, both 30-mile courses.
“What really helped me is finding this group of friends that I can rely on who are supportive,” said O’Gorman, 38. “I had health issues. I lost my dog. Without this supportive group, friends and family that will encourage you it’s really hard to do this when it’s just you.
“You want to quit, and you do have these negative thoughts but when you have that supportive group that you can count on, it makes all the difference.”
Meghan O’Gorman, who once could barely run a tenth of a mile, now routinely completes 26.2 miles for “fun.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2022 at 5:32 PM.
