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OGDEN — Some runners take breaks to catch their breath or rehydrate; others might grab a bite to eat. Kuyler Thompson and Heather LaFrance, on the other hand, ran off course during the 11th mile of Saturday’s Ogden half marathon and got married.

Then, stopping just in front of the finish line, a tuxedo T-shirt-clad Thompson carried LaFrance, who wore a speciality-made wedding dress for runners, across the finish line as the couple completed the race 2,476th and 2,477th, respectively.

However, for the couple and many in the crowd, they were the real winners Saturday.

The couple veered off near the tail end of the race, exchanging vows at a nearby park gazebo before heading back on course and finishing the race.

“It was actually pretty funny, we’d probably get passed every three or four minutes and somebody would ask us, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Thompson said. “We’d tell them like we’re getting married and they’d freak out and they’d say congratulations and then the next person behind them would hear it and jog up and be like, ‘Wait, what was that?’ And we’d explain it again.

“To them, we were like the coolest people there,” he added with a laugh.

As the couple approached the finish line, Thompson said his brother had snuck into the PA booth and told the announcer that Thompson and LaFrance were finishing the race as literal newlyweds.

The crowd applauded as the couple ended their half-marathon with the chivalrous Thompson carrying LaFrance in his arms past the finish line, where they finished with mirroring times of two hours and 32 minutes, new wedding bands on their hands and unforgettable memories.

“It was pretty surreal,” Thompson said.

Though the journey to the finish line garnered the affection of the crowd, the story of how they wound up getting married during a half-marathon is arguably as enchanting and about as equally unique.

Thompson and LaFrance, both college students, met while taking classes at Weber State, and early in their relationship forged a bond running as a way to stay fit.

Though the two got married in the middle of the half marathon, it’s somewhat ironic that neither really pegged themselves as runners. Thompson said he and LaFrance signed up for the race “on a whim” several months ago, though neither had ever run a race before.

Photo Courtesy Kuyler Thompson

“We wouldn’t describe ourselves as big runners — or even that we like to run,” Thompson said. “But it’s a cool goal to accomplish, and to say you’ve done it is way sweet.”

The training was difficult, and at times they joked that maybe they were attempting a race length out of their range. However, running eventually helped their relationship grow. The couple would run during nights after Thompson came home from work, LaFrance said.

“We started running together every night and bonded over that,” Thompson added.

After getting engaged, the wedding eventually got entangled in the planning stages of the race.

While Thompson is a Clinton native, LaFrance hails from Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. With her and Thompson racing for the first time, her family was already planning on making the trip down to support their first crack at running a race. That’s when the idea to combine the race and wedding emerged in her mind.

“I just didn’t want it to be the normal, I guess,” LaFrance said. “I just didn’t feel like doing the regular wedding. I just thought, ‘Oh, you know, that sounds like fun because we were already planning on running it together, and I was like ‘Why don’t we just get married during it?’”

LaFrance said the idea was originally met with some skepticism, but friends and family warmed up to it — especially when, as she joked, they realized formal attire wouldn’t be required.

“I think it (ended up) more like ‘Oh that’s awesome and sounds fun,’” she said.

Photo Courtesy Kuyler Thompson

So Thompson and LaFrance came into the race prepared for the 13.1 miles and for the wedding service at the Ogden Botanical Gardens. That became the venue of choice when the couple began looking at the race course weeks in advance and stumbled across the perfect area near the path of the race.

They rented out a pavilion after scratching the idea of exchanging vows at the finish line, unsure what sort of state they’d be in at that point as half-marathon rookies.

The couple also made sure no time was spared in changing into the traditional wedding attire during the race. LaFrance found a company online that specialized in wedding dresses for runners, and tuxedo T-shirts aren’t hard to find either.

Other odds and ends such as the cake, flowers and dresses and suits for bridesmaids and groomsmen weren’t really a focus of attention.

“(People) would ask, ‘Do you have the flowers picked out?’ ‘No, there’s lots of flowers in the park already,’” Thompson said, chuckling.

For them, preparation for their longest run ever in the weeks leading up to the half marathon became more difficult than the wedding planning.

“The wedding is like the most chill thing — we’ve been ready for weeks,” Thompson said, leading up to the race. “Usually there’s the bridezilla week or something that happens before, but it’s been so easy. People have asked us, ‘How are the wedding preparations coming?’ like two months before, and it was pretty much done.”

In the end, everything came together as planned, Thompson said — albeit the “torrential downpour from start to finish.” They woke up at 3 a.m., started running, got married and finished their first half-marathon as a married couple all within a few hours.

Upon thinking about it for a moment, Thompson said it was difficult to put that all into words.

“The overall feeling is I can’t believe we just did that,” he said.

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