WHEN CECILLE Bordato entered the Flair/Jamdammers Reggae Marathon Contest she just wanted to reclaim herself after years of tending to a sick husband.
However, she surprised herself by topping the female 60-and-over age division in the half marathon (13.1 miles) during the fourth annual Reggae Marathon held in Negril on Saturday, December 4.
Bordato, 63, crossed the finish line in 2 hours and 28 minutes, and almost a week later was still on a high. "I am so surprised that I won the race (her division). However, it is such an awesome feeling and I am still feeling happy about it."
Bordato, one of several readers who entered our marathon contest in September, won her entry fee to the half marathon. In her winning letter she wrote in part: "...now that my children are away and my husband died last year, I'm ready to have a second lease on life."
Bordato confessed that it was not all sunshine during her race preparation and added that she might've been a little bit hard on herself because she needed to know that she could finish the 13.1 miles. She also said that two weeks before the event, she realised that while she could do 13 miles in the mountains and bushes around her home in Shrewsbury, Portland, her legs would become stiff and sore. She turned to yoga stretches to loosen up her muscles.
Now that she had done the half marathon, Bordato said next year she would be back to run the full marathon (26. 2 miles). She also noted that she had become the champion in her family. Her mother, Dorothy Lawson who lives in Miami, Florida, has been bragging to friends of her daughter's feat at age 63.
Jamaican born Bordato grew up on North Street in Kingston and attended the Alpha Convent of Mercy High School in Kingston before migrating to London, Ontario, Canada where she worked as registered nurse. She returned to Jamaica with her husband and two sons in 1989.
Keisha Shakespeare
