RIO DE JANEIRO — About halfway through the Olympic marathon, Jared Ward watched the leaders of the race start to make moves.
“I saw moves up front and people getting assertive,” the 27-year-old BYU professor said after finishing sixth in his Olympic debut. “Honestly at that point I was feeling a little tight and a little heavy. I just kept saying, ‘All right, just hang on for that second wind.’”
While he waited, he summoned thoughts of his wife, Erica, who couldn’t be in Rio for his race because she’s pregnant with their third child. He wasn’t just running 26.2 miles for himself, he was running for her, and thinking about her sacrifices on his behalf kept him with the leaders through a tough stretch.
“Feeling like it was going to come, feeling like I had that support thinking of all the family and things like that,” he said. “Knowing that I want to be in it, and I want to stay in it. I just kept being patient and eventually that second wind did come.”
It came, and it carried him to a personal best marathon time of 2 hours 11 minutes and 30 seconds. He finished 2:46 behind the gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge, Kenya, who crossed the finish line in 2:08.44. Ethiopia’s Feyisa was second with a time of 2:09:54, and American Galen Rupp, running in just his second marathon, also had a personal best with a bronze medal performance of 2:10:05.
"I can say that this was my best marathon in history as I won the gold medal," said Kipchoge. "I don't want to say I am the greatest. … What was in my mind was happiness that I have won the Olympic gold medal. The last two Olympics, I had the bronze and silver medal, so this 2016 Olympics is really crucial for me."
Ward said when the race was tough, he kept thinking of all the reasons he was running. At the top of the list was his wife.
“I was certainly thinking of Erica at home watching TV, pregnant with our third child, and really wanting to do it for her,” he said. “She’s sacrificed for this dream every bit as much as I have. That’s the motivation.” He focused on his plan, trusted his training.
His plan was to run his pace, regardless of what the other runners did.
“Coach and I talked Top 10 finish would be awesome, and we felt like Top 10 finish would be doable,” said Ward, a BYU All-American and Davis High graduate. “We were really keying for that. But (with) that said, we wanted to put ourselves in a position to end up on that podium if it was in the cards. When the leaders go at a pace that I handle, it was stay with the leaders; if they break, it was to try and keep a rhythm and chase people down at the end.”
Ward ran with the lead pack the entire race.
He moved from 22nd place to ninth with just a few miles to go, and then he crossed the finish line in sixth place.
“I heard someone say, ‘You’re in 15th place,’” he said as he approached the final six miles of the race. “I thought, I could pick off one person and then another.”
Ward said it was hard to put into words how it felt to realize a life-long dream.
“It was a dream to be in the race, to try and poke my head in there,” he said of the medalists. “It got tough toward the end.”
He said he’s had an “incredible” Olympics experience starting with Opening Ceremonies and ending with his career best — a sixth place finish at the Summer Games.
Ward didn’t rule out a medal, and he didn’t focus on that either.
“I would say the goal was a Top-10 finish with an open-ended opportunity to chase down that medal if the opportunity came,” he said. “We’re seeing the best runners in the world here, right? And they’ve run faster than I can in the marathon, so it’s not like we came into this saying we’re going to run them into the ground. But we want to have every opportunity to represent the U.S. as best as I can, and so that’s to get to the finish line as fast as I can and at the end of the day, that’s what we try to do.”
And he also relished the opportunity represent his family, his community and his country.
“I was just excited to do it for all the people at home,” he said. “For Utah, for the U.S. It was hard out there but fun to have this opportunity to put on this jersey and play.”
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