Cody Moore recently qualified and participated in the Boston Marathon—the world’s oldest annual marathon—earlier this April. The Colorado State junior qualified for the race after winning the Colorado Marathon in 2016. Moore went on to place 1,114th in the Boston Marathon, finishing at 2 hours, 57 minutes, 23 seconds.

Moore has been a runner by way of his father’s guidance dating back to the eighth grade. Despite playing soccer as a child, Moore took up distance running and began training for a half-marathon.

“(My dad) was doing a half-marathon, so I just thought it sounded like fun,” Moore said. “I didn’t end up doing that half-marathon that I trained for, but then I joined cross country in high school the next year.”

Moore spent high school as a dual-sport athlete, running cross country and playing soccer for Virgil I. Grissom High School in Huntsville, Alabama.

In his freshman year of high school, he ran his first marathon in the 2009 Philadelphia Marathon. Following the marathon in Philadelphia, Moore ran an additional two before the Colorado Marathon in 2016.

Moore won the 2016 Colorado Marathon with a time of 2:39:20, good enough to qualify for the Boston marathon—runners aged 18-34 are required to have a marathon time of 3 hours 5 minutes to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

After his win in the Colorado Marathon in May 2016, Moore began his training for the Boston Marathon.

“I didn’t sign up until September of last year,” Moore said. “(I trained with) a lot of long runs. Eighty to 90 miles a week on average, running 6 to 7 days a week. I ran one little 10-mile race in Littleton as a tune up.”

The Boston marathon took place on April 17, 2017, beginning in the early morning.

“It’s Patriot’s day, so they do the national anthem at the start,” Moore said. “They had a jet fly over, which is super cool. They start the mobility impaired athletes way ahead of you, so as you run, you’re passing them. There’s veterans missing legs and arms and blind runners and it’s just really inspiring.”

The race is made truly special by the people running, but also those supporting the runners and the masses that crowd the streets in Massachusetts to experience the luster of the day.

“It was incredible,” Moore said. “You’ll have to fact check me on some numbers, but there’s over 32,000 people that start it and around 26,000 finish. The course is just lined with spectators. People are hanging over the rails to give you high fives and yell at you.”

This year, the marathon featured 30,074 entries, with 27,221 starting the race and 97 percent (26,411) finishing.

Moore finished 1,114th in the Boston marathon with a time of 2:57:23, good for 6th overall out of 10 Fort Collins-based runners.

The result was not indicative of the journey and experience that Moore took part in.

“I left on Friday, with the race Monday,” Moore said. “I have some family in the area so I stayed with them for a couple days and got to enjoy that part of it. There’s (also) a big expo where you go and pick up your packet and they have every running-related manufacturing company, so we went and saw that.”

Through all the noise of the sponsors lining the expo, Moore stayed true to his Ram pride and ran under the sponsorship of his other athletic passion.

“I was running for the CSU climbing team,” Moore said. “I had one of their singlets on, which was pretty cool.“

Moore is a part of the CSU climbing team that competes against other schools in the area. The team is heading to San Diego for nationals this week.

CSU alumni Chris Retzlaff, Adrian Macdonald, Jerry Lanning and Seth Woodring joined Moore in the marathon. Retzlaff finished the best of any Fort Collins participant with a time of 2:33:21.

Many of his fellow CSU participants run in a group called the “Striders,” which is a University-sanctioned running club that participates in a pair of Colorado-hosted marathon events a year.

Following his running of the Boston marathon in which he qualified again to run in 2018, Moore remains mum on the prospect of participating again.

“It’s a little too far out right now to say if I’ll do it,” Moore said. “I am doing the Colorado marathon again and that’s a week from this Sunday.”

After receiving his diploma in May as a major in food science and nutrition, Moore plans to continue his path with a five-month internship in Durango, Colorado.

Collegian sports reporter Luke Zahlmann can be reached by email at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @lukezahlmann