Jayci Cosens was supposed to be running the Chicago Marathon on Sunday.
Instead, she walked a mile with her parents on the Uniontown track, where her brother, Garin, never lost a race.
"My parents wanted to walk on the Uniontown track because that's where Garin ran," Cosens said.
They weren't alone in remembering him.
By Monday night, about 50 people had reported walking or running a combined 150 miles in Garin's memory — nearly six marathons' worth. Some were from Bourbon County, while others participated from around the country.
None of it was what Cosens had originally planned.
'Okay, I've got to do this one'
"I have always wanted to run the Chicago Marathon," Cosens said.
Last November, she entered the Chicago Marathon's lottery, a random drawing that determines which applicants receive a spot in the race. The following day, her brother died.
Cosens decided she wanted to run the marathon in his memory, securing a charity entry through the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
"So I decided I was going to run it, but I was going to run a charity, be a charity entry," she said.
She began raising money for the foundation in January and training in June. An experienced marathon runner, Chicago would have been her seventh.
But the race had taken on a different significance after Garin's death.
After losing her brother, she recalled thinking, "Okay, I've got to do this one."
Running had also been an important part of Garin's life.
"Garin was a really good runner," Cosens said. "My dad made sure to tell me, which I probably knew, but I would've forgotten. He said at the Uniontown track, Garin never lost a race there."
Garin was a three-time state track champion who still holds all three distance records at Uniontown, according to Cosens. He qualified for national competitions through the Junior Olympics and Hershey programs and still holds some AAU national records, she said.
"So running was always a big part of his story," she said.
In August, Cosens tore her meniscus during a training run, an injury that would force her to withdraw from Chicago.
On Sept. 4, she posted on Facebook that she couldn't compete this year but hoped to return in 2027.
That's when friend Jenny Tourtillott offered an idea Cosens hadn't considered.
'Can we do it for you?'
"So since you can't do it, can we do it for you?" Tourtillott asked in a comment on Cosens' Facebook post. "Like 26.2 of us take on a mile in yours and Garin's honor?"
"I hadn't even thought about it," Cosens said. "It wasn't even on my radar."
She made another Facebook post, inviting anyone interested to walk or run a mile or two on Oct. 11, the day of the Chicago Marathon, and send her a picture and the distance they covered.
"I had no idea how many people would do it," she said.
The photos and messages began arriving over the weekend.
Emma Martin, daughter of Jared and Alesha Martin, walked with her fiancé in Arizona.
Eli Williams, son of Daniel and Taira Williams, works security at Worlds of Fun. He sent Cosens a message reporting that he had walked 22 miles over the weekend.
"It was cool to see the pictures coming through yesterday," Cosens said during a Monday night interview.
By the time she spoke with the Monitor, she had heard from about 50 participants. Together, they had covered approximately 150 miles, far exceeding the 26.2 miles of the Chicago Marathon.
Some of them had never known her brother.
"So lots of people, people who didn't even know Garin, so that was cool," she said.
'People caring about other people'
What began as one person's suggestion on Facebook had grown into an effort involving dozens of people, each contributing whatever distance they could.
For Cosens, the response reflected something she values about living in a small community.
"I think it just speaks to being in a small community and people caring about other people and feeling like they can do something small," she said.
Cosens still plans to run the Chicago Marathon next year with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, provided her knee has recovered.
She said the foundation's runners raised nearly $1 million through this year's Chicago Marathon.
Although she couldn't run in Chicago this year, the weekend brought together people from near and far to remember her brother.
"Just people who care about their community and like to show up," she said.
