Running for Cosley

It was a little over the 20-mile mark that the fatigue started to set in.

Just a few miles from home, Kevin Bostock wasn’t sure he could make it there. The hill he’d just topped had sapped his energy.

“I had a little moment to myself where I was like, ‘Oh gosh I’m so close, I can do this,’” Bostock said. “I was a little worried I couldn’t. I settled down and stretched for a second and then just kept going.”

Bostock was supposed to run the Boston Marathon, originally scheduled for April 19, but the race had been postponed to September due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

His alternate race, the Whitefish Marathon, was out, too. So he decided to take things into his own hands and run a marathon anyway.

Bostock wanted to do it for his 3-and-a-half year old daughter, Cosley, who was born with a rare genetic mutation that causes developmental challenges.

He set out at 11 a.m. Friday from his office parking lot in Kalispell, a man on a mission.

“I have thought about it a lot and I never want her to feel like she’s limited in any way,” Bostock said. “I hadn’t ever run a marathon before but I thought that if I just showed her you can put your mind to something and you can do it. So I’ve done that and I want to continue to set goals to prove to her that no human is limited. Just show her that even though life will be hard and she’ll have to work harder than most, she can do it.”

Bostock, 35, a financial advisor at Edward Jones, mentioned to coworkers Adam Heggelund and Alida Tinch that he’d been thinking about running a marathon course that would essentially be from his office to his home in Whitefish.

The wheels started turning for Tinch and Heggelund, who recruited support from colleagues in other Edward Jones offices across the Flathead Valley.

“I thought, he’s gonna need some sort of support on this event and let’s just call it an Edward Jones event,” said Tinch, who is Bostock’s assistant.

There ended up being close to 25 people who turned out to support Bostock on Friday.

“I was kind of thinking I would just do this on my own and suffer in silence,” Bostock said. “It was really nice to have all of them support me.”

They got to work mapping a route that ran from Kalispell’s east side to Evergreen, up Montana 206 through Columbia Falls, ending at Bostock’s Whitefish residence.

Along the course there were stops set up with water, snacks and energy gel, unpacked by Jesse Mann from the back of his pickup. Music blared through a portable speaker and cowbells rang on his approach.

For 15 miles, Bostock ran alone. He was joined by his friend Kraig Moore for 10 miles of the run.

The last mile-and-a-half, his wife, Jody and daughter, Cosley, in a running stroller, joined him.

Neighbors and friends awaited the Bostocks on arrival at their home. Kevin finished with a time of three hours and 39 minutes, plus an extra mile beyond the 26.2 miles to get home.

A soccer goalie by trade, Kevin started running more seriously last April and began marathon training that July.

“I played goalie in college so I didn’t run at all,” he said.

Jody has run several marathons herself and is considered the runner in the Bostock family.

“Kevin has made some big life changes with eating habits, work habits, family habits … so he wanted to prove to her (Cosley) that anything’s possible,” Jody said. “Not knowing our future for Cosley, he wanted to prove to her that, ‘Look, I know I can do this and if you put your mind to anything you can do it.’”

Jody and Kevin don’t train together, though.

“We’ve gone for casual runs,” Jody said. “We’re too competitive. I think it wouldn’t work out very well.”

Any hard training will have to wait for Jody anyway. She’s four-and-a-half months pregnant with the Bostock’s second child, a boy.

Kevin plans to run another marathon and maybe compete in a half-Ironman. Cosley might be too young to really understand what her father is doing, but Kevin hopes as she grows that it will be something special they share.

“I think it will be one of many things I want to do to continue to prove to her that as I get older and continue to age I can prove to her that it’s just about hard work, being a good person and having integrity and love for others,” he said. “I think she can make a pretty good go of it.”

In a time where there are so many unknowns, Kevin hopes his story can offer some hope amidst the uncertainty.

“I think the reality is, it seems like we’re living in trying times and things can seem bleak at moments in all of our lives,” he said. “I really wanted to do something to inspire others and do some good in the world.”