Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon about more than running for couple

A week before Michelle Hartman was supposed to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon last year in Las Vegas, she came down with strep throat.

Not feeling 100 percent, she considered staying home in Louisiana. It wasn’t until the last minute that she decided to go through with her original plans and head to Las Vegas with her friends to run.

Little did Hartman know the bout with strep throat would slow her expected time and lead her to her future husband.

Andrew Broadbent had run five times in Las Vegas in honor of his late son.

But he had recently finished a full marathon in Chicago that had caused some knee issues to flare up and keep him behind his expected finish time, too.

It’s been a whirlwind year for Andrew and Michelle Broadbent, who met last November, got engaged in February, moved in together in Boca Raton, Florida, and married in May. This weekend, they’ll head back to Las Vegas to run, and Monday will mark a year since they first crossed paths around mile five.

For about seven miles of the course last year, the two kept passing each other.

At one point, Andrew, now 49, leaned over.

“Nice costume,” he told Michelle, now 46, who was dressed as Elvis.

“I wasn’t really sure what it was either, but it was cute,” he said.

At about mile 12, he struck up another conversation. The two chatted through the finish line.

“(It was) just a basic conversation. Nothing really remarkable or out of the ordinary, just kind of a nice conversation,” Michelle said. “When the half finished, I was just really worn out and ready to leave, basically.”

When Andrew introduced himself, Michelle responded by saying she was “tired,” and left to find her friends and head back to their hotel.

He left Las Vegas and headed back home to Florida without her name.

About a week later, when marathon photos came out, Michelle noticed Andrew was in a majority of photos alongside her.

She felt bad for leaving the way she did, and so she looked up his bib number, found his name and looked him up on Facebook. It wasn’t particularly hard, as his profile picture was of him running.

She sent a message, telling him it was great to meet him and she was sorry for ditching him — she wasn’t trying to be rude, she was just exhausted.

They hit it off from there. Conversation flowed easily and they talked frequently.

A few weeks later, at the beginning of December, Andrew, who owns an IT consulting business, was back in Las Vegas.

He had purchased tickets to The Beatles LOVE, the Cirque Du Soleil show at The Mirage, to attend with a client, but made a mistake when buying them. He had bought them for a couple of weeks later. Half jokingly, he asked Michelle if she would like join him.

She said yes.

Michelle, a family nurse practitioner, left Louisiana on Friday night. They saw the Cirque du Soleil show, took a helicopter tour to the Grand Canyon and had their first real date. Michelle flew back Sunday.

“After that it was pretty much we were together nonstop since then,” Michelle said.

Andrew proposed on Valentine’s Day, and they were married by the beach May 20 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“Neither one of us has ever been the kind to rush into things so I think when my friends and family weren’t telling me I was crazy, I knew that I was on the right path because I don’t rush into things. … The fact that I was so comfortable with him immediately, it was unlike anybody else I had ever been with,” Michelle said.

They try to run with each other a few times a week and will do so Sunday in Las Vegas.

“I think around mile eight last year, Michelle was ready to never come back to Vegas,” Andrew said jokingly. “But that’s changed.”

Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.