Video of couple at Med City Marathon goes viral

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Showing up for the people you love. That’s something this native southeastern Minnesota couple lives by.

A few weeks ago, at the Med City Marathon St. Charles native Carson Henry decided to document his fiancé Shelby Strain’s first marathon on Instagram.

Byron native Strain has been running for a few years now.

“I just started doing 5K’s and slowly worked my way up to a full marathon,” she said.

She ran in this year’s Med City Marathon in Rochester, and her partner St. Charles native Carson Henry traveled from North Dakota to come support her.

“I can’t even imagine running over 10 miles. 26.2 miles is definitely one of those things where I was like we got to get this documented,” Henry said.

Henry decided to check in with Strain every couple of miles and recorded each of their interactions.

“I thought he was just going to show up like once in a while. I had no idea he was gonna be there that many times,” Strain said.

“I had an idea right before I came down there. I planned out what I wanted to do, and I surprised her every couple of miles,” Henry said.

After she completed the race, they edited the video and put it up on Instagram Reels, wanting to share it with family and friends, but it took off and has quickly gained more than 5.5 million views.

“I remember laughing. It was just something fun for us to do. And then, when I saw it blow up, I was like, “Oh my gosh, my face is everywhere now,” Strain said.

“I’ve had some videos go viral like that, but nothing to that extent. It’s always the video you don’t really put a whole lot of time into,” Henry said.

There were moments when the race got tough for Strain, but Henry showed up at several spots, and that helped her keep going.

It’s the kind of love and support you want to make last a lifetime. So, a week after the run, Carson popped the question in Arizona.

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