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ING NEW YORK CITY MARATHONNovember 1, 2011Kiki HomerKristen Schwartz GlickNEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK KIKI HOMER: As we approach the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I thought more and more about running the marathon, and thought that it would be a good way to focus my energy during what I thought would be an even more difficult year leading up to the anniversary. So I thought the training for the marathon would, again, give me something to focus on and work towards leading up to the marathon, something to celebrate. Q. You ran in 2002? KIKI HOMER: I did. Q. That was your first time? KIKI HOMER: I hobbled, yes. That was my first. I'm not a runner. I'm not -- I wouldn't even call myself a casual runner. So, in 2002, I forgot how long I had to train for that. And I underestimated how difficult it would be and, really, I guess I picked up my training late August after I'd done a half marathon and realized how difficult it was. So for this one I started earlier. I've been fairly consistent and I'm hopeful that -- I know that I'll finish. I'm hopeful that I'll finish faster than I did in 2002, which was just under seven hours. But I'm not running to -- it's not a race for me. Q. You're not running for time? KIKI HOMER: No, not at all. Not this year. Now I'm saying maybe I'll start training for next year or the year after, but I don't know. Q. To both of you, how therapeutic is running in regards to just giving yourselves something to think about other than this anniversary? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Very. It's always been for me even separate from 9/11 or having -- because I married into the Glick family. My husband's brother is Jeremy Glick, and I met my husband in 2004. So, I mean, separate from 9/11, I am a runner. I ran in '07, and I've always been an athlete. So it's always very therapeutic and just quiets my mind, and that is before dealing with 9/11. Q. Have you run here before? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, I ran New York in 2007. Q. In 2007. How many marathons have you run? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: That was my first, but I had run a bunch before that. Q. Glick's sister was a figure skater? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, she was. Joanna. Q. She did a big performance. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, she did. KIKI HOMER: I didn't know that. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah. Q. So brief life story. Where are you from originally? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: I'm from Huntington, New York. I grew up on Long Island. Q. Were you an athlete as a kid? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yes. Q. In? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Soccer and Lacrosse and started running in high school. Then when I got to college I chose not to play soccer or play sports with all my older siblings. They I really found I needed an outlet, and I started running. Q. What high school did you go to? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Walt Whitman. Q. Were you a competitive runner in high school? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: No, no, soccer was my sport. Q. And how about you? Where are you from originally? KIKI HOMER: I'm from Long Island as well, Hauppauge. When I grew up, I was a tomboy, so I was always out running around, mostly unorganized sports. I did some gymnastics. But most of my sports were unorganized, which is running around, and running around a lot. So, for me, the process is therapeutic. The process of training is therapeutic, and although I haven't played organized sports, I'm super competitive, and I tend to compete most with myself. So setting a challenge like this has -- has been therapeutic. I think about the milestones, kind of setting the milestones and visualizing and getting to them, and then actually getting to them, then that just kind of pushes me to the next level. Q. You have jobs you have to balance in with the training? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Certainly. I work in TV on the production side. Q. In the city? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: In the city, yes. Q. For who? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Meeting House Productions, and I worked at Food Network prior for six years. Q. So when and how do you run and where? KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: I live in Brooklyn, so if I run another loop at Prospect Park, I'm going to go crazy. But the bridges have been good because when I was training in '07, we were living on the upper east side, so all my life, I actually just stayed in the park. But it's really nice now to run the bridge. Q. How about you? Where do you work and how do you fit in training? KIKI HOMER: I'm an attorney. For 22 years I've practiced M & A, corporate law in New York. Most Lee recently for city group. But my business was taken over by discover financial, and I recently resigned to pursue my true passion, which is cooking. I'm going to explore it. Q. It goes well with running. It really does. KIKI HOMER: It does. I can burn off the calories, but I've been interested in food and health issues. So until September 11th, I thought more strongly about -- I guess everybody kind of reflects on life and what they're doing, and my brother always pursued his passion. He knew from a very young age that he wanted to fly, and I thought a lot about going to culinary school. And I finally did three years ago part-time and have juggled that with practice and having a full-time legal career and have done some catering and private dinners and the like. I had the good fortune of being able to resign. Q. If we didn't know you guys and we were out on the course this week, would we be able to spot you? Do you have T-shirts? KIKI HOMER: Oh, yes, we have T-shirts. We have a sample here. Q. Do you have a visual? KIKI HOMER: Yes, I have a visual. Yes, I bought shirts for the Glick family. So we have shirts that say Families of Flight 93. Q. What color are they? KIKI HOMER: They say, "They never gave up and neither will we." They're blue, and it has all the names on the back. My son's friend helped us on it. It's very similar to the ones in 2002 but with the logo. Q. "They never gave up and neither will we" you said? KIKI HOMER: "They never gave up and neither will we." Q. Kristen was talking about the charity efforts. What is your goal? She wasn't sure of the numbers. KIKI HOMER: So the goal was to raise as much as we can. So we're currently saying $25,000. Initially, I said if each team member can raise $250 per person, but I recognize it's a lot for many people. We're already at 20,000. I know initially for me I was thinking of sort of personal therapy, but then when I realized sort of the magnitude of the event and the effort, thinking about the memorial more and more and more, and being -- I'm one of the board members and I've been working on the project. As I said, it's kind of a no-brainer to try to couple the two things and get visibility. Q. Do you have any idea how much money it will cost to complete it? KIKI HOMER: We need I think $10 million more. Q. So you're a long way off? KIKI HOMER: We're a long way off, but we need -- so we need support. At the tenth anniversary Bill Clinton was there, Bush, and others, and Bill was riding in a car or walking over with the president of our organization Gordon Felt, and they were chatting. Q. Will you guys carry personal affects to remember the victims of the flight or do you do that? KIKI HOMER: Well, I made the mistake -- I was a novice, I'll still a novice. But in 2002 I had a picture of my brother that was laminated, and it was about this big, and I pinned it to my back. I did have the good sense to kind of round the corners, but it was pretty cumbersome, so I ran with that. So I've got to miniaturize or do something before Sunday. It's still attached to the shirt that I had in 2002, and I haven't taken it off. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: It's still there? KIKI HOMER: Yeah, it's still there. So either a picture, or I was thinking I've been reading this book on and off of Lance Armstrong's wife, I forgot her name. She's a runner. It's called Mile Markers, The 26.2 Reasons Why Women Run. I haven't gotten that far, but one thing that she said -- she or somebody, one of her friends -- was that they wear either a bracelet or write the names of different people or events to mark each mile. And I thought maybe I'll get one of those rubber bracelets or something. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't have anything. I mean, it sounds corny, but I know Jen and Liz, it's all inside, especially Liz. She has a lot of options inside. It will be a lot of ups and a lot of downs through the race. I'll have a lot of goo too. KIKI HOMER: Yes, I will have a lot of goo as well. Q. Could you tell us a little bit about your brother? KIKI HOMER: Sure. I mean, he was an amazing man. He was smart, nice, soft spoken, kind of a man of few words. Probably because he had so many sisters, but my dad was like that as well. Q. How many sisters were there again? KIKI HOMER: Seven sisters, two brothers. Q. His bio is amazing, Air Force Academy, outstanding student. KIKI HOMER: He was very humble. My parents always said that he knew he wanted to fly. When he was little my dad used to take him to the airport when he was two and just watch the planes take off. When he was in high school, it may have been shortly before high school and I was running around being a teenager, he was working with a neighbor next door cleaning offices in the evening to save money for his flight lessons. At 16, he got his first certification. When he applied to the Air Force Academy, there is a nomination process. We knew nothing about it. I mean, all of a sudden he was thinking West Point - my dad was in the Army - or Air Force Academy, and we literally didn't know what he was aiming for. He just literally did it -- he did it on his own which was pretty remarkable. We were in awe over it. He wasn't dismissive, but he definitely was not the one to seek the spotlight. He liked to live well. He loved to travel. We were very similar in that regard. Q. What do you think he would think if he knew you were out running marathons? KIKI HOMER: Probably crazy. He would say there goes Kiki, because I was always -- I probably marched to the beat of my own drum more than anyone else in the family. So to do this, which is very, very challenging, and I'm not an athlete. I'm not a runner. I think he would think it is consistent with my nature. He probably would get a kick out of it. Q. Was he an athlete at all? What do you think he would think of the marathon in general? KIKI HOMER: He actually was on the track team in high school. Q. Oh, do you remember what event? KIKI HOMER: Oh, boy. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: There are so many of them. KIKI HOMER: I know. You're testing my memory now. Q. This was Hauppauge High School? KIKI HOMER: No, he actually went to -- he was good. I rebelled and went to public school. He went to St. John the Baptist. Q. And he was on the track team? KIKI HOMER: Yes, he was. My mom's got the trophy. His room has not changed at home. Which is kind of cool, it's cool and it's. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, yeah. KIKI HOMER: It's kind of cool. But my mom -- him being the only boy, and my father waited for a son, so he was always treated very special. So we never had a problem with it. My room was quickly changed. Q. He was younger than you by? KIKI HOMER: No, one year older. But he had model planes and they're still hanging from the ceiling in his room. His medals are up. He would definitely give me some pointers. Q. What do you think happened on that flight? KIKI HOMER: Oh, what do I think happened on that plane? Q. Yeah. I mean, they don't know, but you knowing your brother, what do you think? KIKI HOMER: Knowing my brother, right. Over the years for me it's been like a puzzle that sometimes I want to piece together and sometimes I don't. I just don't have any interest in it. So I believe that my brother was professionally trained. I believe that until the end he did what he could do to divert the effort. To hear the remarkable biographies, personal histories of the people who were on board, various training from Judo, we had someone else who was a pilot. So I think that some of the characterizations of people coming together must have been true. Seeing the flight path how the plane was diverted. I don't know. I'd like to think that my -- I'd like to think that my brother didn't perish -- I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you see inferences or people make inferences about what happened. I'd like to think that he fought until the end along with everybody else. Q. Of the four planes, the legacy of Flight 93 is different than the other flights, so something happened. KIKI HOMER: Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to take anything away from any efforts from anybody on that day. So we don't know as much of what happened on maybe other planes. But there are lots of heroes that day. Yeah, there were lots of heroes that day. And I think it's special because my brother was on board the flight. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, but there were also small women who were just as mighty as the men who were strong. KIKI HOMER: Yeah, and where there is physical strength, there is also the support and just being there, whether it's holding somebody's hand or just getting somebody through the difficulty of that time. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Whenever, for us, and I know the family, with that stuff, it's so hard. So we always just talk about Jeremy's life a lot. We talk about funny college stories, what music he liked to listen to. It's not just about this big awful day. Especially for me, I like to hear stories that one day he actually went to school with his pajama pants on because he was little, and there were six kids. It always reverts back away from it from the ugliness. KIKI HOMER: I would tell you as well in our family I actually can't think of a conversation where we've actually talked about what happened on the plane. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: No, I don't think I ever have. I wasn't there till '04, but... KIKI HOMER: No, we don't. We focus on my brother's life, and it's brought the family closer together. And I also think you've seen the images on TV. There was not this physical -- the wreckage wasn't there, and I'm thankful for that, because there is kind of this disconnect between the plane in the sky and then the crash. I think the absence of that -- I don't know how to explain it. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: It's kind of spiritual in a way. Yeah, Jed and his siblings and Liz -- because this year, we were talking about the first month after, they can't remember. It's like how the first month, the first year even, Jed, my husband , is foggy on everything. He has no idea what took place. KIKI HOMER: Yeah, it was a big blur. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, it was a big blur. KIKI HOMER: And leading up to the tenth anniversary, just relating different things in terms of the memorial planning and talking about some of the things that had happened shortly after, I mean these are like memories and it's like, "Oh, yeah, you're right. I don't believe we did that." KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: A lot came back to them. In one of the speeches someone had mentioned ten years of grief, and that was kind of very overwhelming for them. For my husband, definitely, it is still so raw. So, so raw. I assume it is for you and your family too. But it's been ten years, but he's still, you know, he goes right back to it. KIKI HOMER: Yeah, maybe time heals some wounds, but I don't think -- yeah, it's still very raw for me as well. It's triggered by random things. Sometimes when I'm running I'll think of something beautiful, and I'd think of what my brother would like. Or I see someone with a young child, and his daughter was not even a year old at the time, and I think about the fact that he's not going to experience being a dad. That could set me off. Or it could be something happy and being on a trip and think about how he loves to travel. It's very random. KRISTEN SCHWARTZ GLICK: Yeah, same for Jed. Yeah, something totally random like eating a Dorito, yeah. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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