Zohreh Taraz may not fly like the wind when she hits the streets of New York City on Nov. 2, but regardless of her running time she plans to complete the 2003 New York City Marathon.
Before leaving Chapel Hill, however, her main work is to reach her fund-raising goal, which will benefit El Centro Latino, where she serves as a board member.
The story of how Taraz, an accountant and owner of her own small business, came to run her first marathon at the age of 52 is almost as circuitous as the 26-mile race she has been preparing for since spring.
The desire to race in New York has been with her for about 30 years.
“I had a conversation with someone training for the Boston Marathon,” Taraz said. “I really liked the idea of the challenge of it.”
There was just one catch. “I’ve never been a runner and still don’t consider myself a runner,” Taraz said. But all of her life, she has been a walker.
Born in Iran, she and her older brothers were sent to England when they were 12 to further their education. While living in London, Taraz would frequently walk home from school rather than ride the bus.
At the age of 19, she came to the United States to spend a summer visiting an uncle who lived in New York. During the course of the summer, her uncle enrolled her in a Baha’i summer school where she went one weekend.
“As a teen I was not interested in religion,” Taraz said. “In the Baha’i faith you must at some point state that you want to be Baha’i.”
But she knew she needed to study more to be able to live by the religion’s standards. “Much to my uncle’s surprise, that weekend I declared my faith,” she said.
A short summer romance ended in marriage. “It was a shock for my family,” she said.
After the marriage, Zohreh returned to school in London. Then she transferred to the University of New Hampshire, and she and her husband settled in Portsmouth, N.H. Seven years later, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Two children were born to the couple, who moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands and lived there for 11 years. While living on St. Croix, Taraz competed in the local triathlon.
“I did fine,” she said, smiling slyly. “I came in last, but I did fine.”
She did the 1-mile ocean swim, the 26-mile bike ride and 6-mile run, which she mostly walked. She knew then that the next step was to do a marathon.
That was 15 years ago, and the thought has remained on the back burner.
Last year, she attended a workshop on how to train for a marathon and learned that if you raise money for a specific organization, the registration fee is waived. She signed up for the New York Marathon and, almost instantly, roadblocks started popping up.
She went from working with Bill Bunch at his accounting agency to starting her own and had no time to train. Then she took a 12-mile run that ended with her legs killing her.
“My friends and my children would laugh at me,” she said. “They said, ‘You don’t participate in a 5K — you go from not running at all to running a marathon.’”
With the sound of clucking tongues in her head, she approached a group of runners as they returned to AC Fitness in Carrboro one day. She asked if they were training for a marathon and learned that they were. They invited her to join them.
I’m slow, she warned them.
That’s OK, they told her. Somebody would match her speed.
So she took to the roadways. She quickly noticed fellow runner Sally Whitmore, who would stop running and pick up every coin she saw along her route. That gave Taraz the idea of raising $100 for every cent she picked up during her training runs.
“In the next little bit I picked up a quarter and a dime,” she said happily. She believed she had received approval from the universe.
Picking a nonprofit to benefit was easy. She had become a board member of El Centro Latino in February.
“By the time El Centro was doing its budget, I’d picked up 75 cents, so that $7,500 is on the budget. Since then I’ve picked up 15 cents more!”
So, her goal is $7,500, but she’s hoping for $9,000 or whatever she can bring in for the Carrboro agency that strives to provide direct social and educational services, community building and advocacy for Latinos in Orange County.
“I think it’s just wonderful that Zohreh wants to run in the New York Marathon,” said Hector Perez, executive director of El Centro Latino.
“She’s a very enthusiastic board member, and when she told us she was running, we just paused,” Perez said.
They weren’t really sure what to think. “Then she mentioned it again, and we were very interested,” Perez added. “We’re all taken by her effort.”
It’s certainly a unique fund-raising idea for a board member.
“Zohreh had specific experiences of being an immigrant herself,” Perez said. “She feels very strongly about that process.”
“The Latino population of this area is growing at an incredible rate,” Taraz said. “That community has tremendous needs if it is to be appropriately integrated with the rest of the community. It’s an issue all of us need to be involved in — the onus is on both sides to bring about integration. If we ignore it, the divide gets greater.”
Taraz said she knows wonderful, upstanding citizens who resist the integration and don’t want Latinos here.
“The center has the vision and a fantastic board,” Taraz said. “There’s rarely a meeting without full representation of board members. But there’s not enough money to run the programs.
“I believe in giving to your community. I am supported by this community. I believe in giving back in terms of time and money.”
She hopes others will believe in this cause and give.
“When I started approaching people for pledges I told them I’m going to run, walk or crawl,” but she will finish the race. She has received donations from people in Hawaii, England, the West Coast, New England and locally but is still $3,000 short.
“I don’t care what you pledge, pledge something,” she said. “Every dollar counts.”
And every penny will go to El Centro Latino — even those she might collect while pounding the New York pavement.
If you would like to support her effort, make checks out to El Centro Latino and send them to her at P.O. Box 2715, Chapel Hill, NC 27515.
Valarie Schwartz can be reached at 932-2011 or vschwart@nando.com.
