Miriam Farhi

I first met Dan Hanegbi at the tennis center in Ramat Hasharon. I had previously met Ronit, Dan's mother, who accompanied him to training with coach Elisha. Dan and Assi, my son, trained together in the same team. I remember Sharonit and I talked and became friends almost immediately.

I myself trained then with Elisha and so did my partner who used to play tennis in Istanbul, Turkey, from where we made it to Israel.
The Dan Dan I knew as a child, was already a little gentleman back then. He turned out to be a great gentleman and many more years later ...

Over the years, I started swimming and abandoned tennis. At 56, after many years, I came to a sport that has become the love of my life  The marathon. I started running half marathons, but then I actually asked myself why not a full marathon?

I won marathons in Paris, Tiberias here in Israel, and also in Berlin. The first time I went to the lottery for the New York Marathon I was not accepted. Only the second time, I got in the lottery and then of course I got stressed ... Although I really like urban landscapes and big cities and I loved New York, running a marathon in this city scared me. I did not know how I would manage.

Ronit immediately entered the picture. She told me from the first moment not to worry, because she would connect me with Dan who then already lived in the city with Sasha and the kids. She told me that Dan Dan knows the city like the back of his hand. A WhatsApp group opened and Dan and I started corresponding. From the first moment he did not treat me as his mother's girlfriend but as his girlfriend for everything.

He very quickly became my guardian, and my level of fear dropped. I started asking Dan questions and always got clear and decisive answers. Thanks to him I got on the Ferry for the first time. Thanks to him I got to SoHo. Thanks to him I ran the New York Marathon and also finished it, right against all odds.

And why against all odds?

Because Dan accompanied me throughout the marathon inside my head and in my mind.
Dan had been killed three months earlier.

Ronit decided to get to that marathon in New York. The night before the run, she invited me to the traditional pasta meal that marathon runners tend to eat to get a lot of carbs into their bodies. Uri, Dan's brother, also came to the meal. 
I was very excited. Ronit and Uri sat in front of me and the sadness in the air could not be ignored. I did not know what to do.
We did not talk much even though I really wanted to talk ahead of the marathon. What I really wanted was to cry.

That night Ronit decided to come and sleep in my room. For all her suffering, she tried to take into account my feelings the day before the task I set for myself and after hard work and months of preparation.
 
We did not talk about Dan, but he was with us in the room. This evening was very charged, but I knew that both Ronit and Uri were making a supreme effort despite their pain to support me.

In the morning I got up early, did exercises and left the room scared. I was devastated. I got in the cab and saw the swarm of people I knew like me, they were on their way to run the marathon, and I just went with the flow. 

On the way to Staten Island I started to relax a bit. My guardian, Dan, was with me in my head.
I started the marathon with an injury and told myself I would start and see what would happen. When I got to the half marathon I was able to keep going. I felt that Dan was accompanying me every step of the way.

I did not meet Ronit again in New York after the marathon. It seems to me that in tacit agreement we both decided not to talk much about what happened to Dan. We both felt there was no need to pry into wounds.
 
For Dan, my desire to run a marathon in old age was naturally accepted . Unlike friends my age who kept asking me what I even needed it for, Dan had no questions or doubts. He never asked or interfered with my considerations, even when he knew I was approaching the marathon when I was injured, with almost no knees, and with a meager training background of less than 25km of running, that it was considered really nothing.
 
Dan has given advice and net help and I am grateful for that. When we talked, he would not ask me like everyone else "how are you", and not out of carelessness or respect but on the contrary - because he really understood me. He flowed with me and with my feelings to the end. I think my ambitions, despite the difficulties, spoke to him very much. Also the common feature we had was going with everything to the end. Dan was a young and ambitious guy, and needless to say he was also very successful in everything he touched.
  
I know they will not believe me,  But I do not have one bad word to say about Dan. I did not have a multiple relationship with him but mostly a one-time one, but very intense towards the marathon and that is how I experienced him - as a perfect person.

After Dan left us, his friends took on his role as my guardians. I had a support group that was all made up of Dan's friends in the US and in the country as well.

I wrote a book about my experience as a marathon runner, and of course Dan appears in it. He appears and will be present forever in my life.

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Miriam Farhi Rodrig is a doctor of philosophy and also has a master's degree in economics.
Even after several serious medical events in her life, she never gave up, when she decided to run a marathon despite her "extreme" age we adored her.
Miriam decided at the age of 56 to start running. Dan became Miriam's number one advisor and supporter ahead of her New York Marathon debut in 2017. In her book Portrait of a Runner, Miriam talks about her 2017 New York Marathon running experience, as well as her experiences as a marathon runner
Three months before the marathon Dan was killed.

I remember that even during the shiva I thought "who will take care of Miriam" now .. Dan did not get to see Miriam running, but it was clear that a large part of the fact that she finished the run despite all the difficulties that accompanied her, is related to the fact that she did not leave her for a moment. He accompanied her in his spirit along the entire difficult route to the finish line.

When Miriam went to run the London Marathon as well, she got a cold and retired from the race. She said the reason was not the cold snap, but the simple fact that Dan was not with her.

The end of Miriam Farhi's marathon in New York moved and made us all cry.
It was a huge victory of body and soul.

Ronit Hanegbi