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Posted April 19, 2005
 
Meadow Brook man, 28, first Alabamian to finish
Solomon Crenshaw Jr., News Staff Writer
Birmingham News
 

The last time Gerald McGwin Jr. ran a race against Ellis Porch III, Porch was pushing his infant son in a stroller in the 5-kilometer race and McGwin beat him.
 
Monday, 4-month-old Ellis IV watched with his mom Tracy as Porch III beat McGwin to the finish line of the 109th annual Boston Marathon. Porch, 28, was the first Alabama runner to complete the 26.2-mile course.
 
The man from Meadow Brook finished in two hours, 39 minutes and 21 seconds. Huntsville's Todd White, 40, was next at 2:43:26. McGwin, 34, of Mountain Brook, was 35 seconds over the three-hour mark.
 
"I was shooting for 2:40 and probably went out a little too fast and realized that once we got to the hills," Porch said. "I dialed it back and wound up meeting my goal."
 
Porch and McGwin train daily at about 4:30 a.m. in Crestline.
 
"We had separate goals," said Porch, a business systems analyst with Protective Life. "He was shooting for something in the two-, three-hour range. I was shooting for 2:40 but it was ambitious."
 
That goal was four minutes faster than Porch's previous best in a marathon. This was Porch's second time running the Boston and he wilted in the heat a year ago to finish at 3:16:30.