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His jaw tightens when he thinks about the 12 years he couldn’t go back to Mexico to see the people he loved. The shelf is a sort of altar created for family, and as Memo looks at it, memories wash over him. Sometimes the older generation would forget that their “newer” pants had zippers. In the old days, people used to wear white linen pants that just had a string. “That’s the way they wore them,” Memo says, laughing. Both are barefoot and have a lifetime of hardship wrinkled into their skin. On an orange shelf in the center of his living room sits a picture of his parents. He takes his shoes off at the door and wipes at the floor with a towel. Out in Queens, Memo’s apartment is clean and organized.
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This April, he will make his first appearance in London and is on pace to run his fastest marathon ever. In 2019, he ran a 1:10:50 half marathon on Staten Island and a 2:28:42 in the marathon-at Boston. The next year he finished in 2:51:17, and in 2018 he blazed a 2:36:58. In 2015, Memo ran the New York City Marathon in 2:54:49. Out of 4,644 runners, he came in 18th place overall-first in his age group with a personal best of 51:27.
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Cold December winds combine with the park’s rolling hills to make this test a brute worthy of its namesake, a man who used to run 300-mile training weeks while working as a massage therapist. Of the New York Road Runners’s scored, marathon-qualifying races, it is perhaps the most dreaded. In December, Memo ran the Ted Corbitt 15K.