Newlyweds cross finish line together

Usually the sport that uses the term "love" is tennis. This time, it's running, marathon running, to be exact.

Two area runners met at local practice meets, went off to Hawaii to participate in a fund-raiser marathon there and ended up falling in love. They were married in Las Vegas Saturday.

Southwest resident Lisa Morrison is a supervisor of training at Nevada Title. When she was in junior and senior high, she was on the track team. But as an adult, her career took precedence over sports. About eight years ago, she got back into running and began entering 5-kilometer runs.

She learned from a co-worker about the marathon to benefit the American Heart Association set in Kona, Hawaii, for June 2002 and decided to challenge herself. The decision was made easier by the fact the event took place in such an exotic locale.

She joined other Las Vegans who would run in Hawaii and they all trained as a group under the banner Las Vegas Train To End Stroke. That's where she first noticed her future husband, Bruce Brown.

He was retired from the Air Force, a longtime marathon runner and in great condition. A fast runner, he quickly outpaced all the others there to train. So, except for at the starting line, about all Morrison saw of him was his backside.

But one glance was enough to spark interest. The admiration was a two-way street.

"I thought she was cute," he said when he recalled noticing her for the first time. "She had a dynamite smile."

In Hawaii, pre-marathon matters kept each of them busy. During the race, Brown pulled far ahead. Morrison, who had suffered a torn quadriceps muscle two months before, took things easy.

By the time she crossed the finish line a little over five hours later, Brown was long gone. It looked like the romantic setting would be wasted -- until the group went to a luau.

Brown and Morrison had Mother Nature on their side. The weather was a little windy and Morrison's dinner roll tumbled off her plate and into Brown's lap.

When she tried to get dessert from the buffet table, the wind threatened to whip her skirt up so she only had the use of one hand. Sir Lancelot to the rescue.

"I thought I'd be gallant," he said. "So I used the wind as an excuse to go up and help her."

As for her part, Morrison said she found him funny, good looking and intelligent. But she wasn't leaving things to nature. Soon after they returned to the mainland, she got brave and sent him an e-mail.

"I've never done anything like that before," she said.

They met again at the marathon's victory party at Bertolini's Restaurant and that's when they really hit it off. After dating for a year, they were talking about settling down, window shopping for a ring, making plans to combine their households.

But Brown still hadn't officially proposed.

Blame it on indecision. He said he thought about taking her up in a hot air balloon to ask her to marry him 1,000 feet above Las Vegas. He thought about proposing to her at church.

In July, they were invited to Phoenix to help a friend celebrate getting her master's degree and flew down together. Brown made the closing remarks with the final sentences directed at Morrison. And that's when, in front of 150 people, he asked her to marry him.

"He got down on one knee and everything," Morrison said.

The couple's wedding was Saturday, after which they moved into their new house near Cheyenne and the Beltway.

They regularly work out together at a local gym but said they probably won't do any more marathons together.


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