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Nov 4 10:42 AM ET | By Bonnie D. Ford ESPN.com

22.11.11

Airports and airplanes will always be full of visual triggers for Christine "Kiki" Homer.

She feels a reflexive ache when she sees pilots wheeling their bags down the concourse. She glances inside the cockpit door when she boards a plane. At cruising altitude, she gazes out the window and thinks of the vast blue yonder her brother saw through the windshield. He had worked to be in that seat since he was a little boy.

Homer, who lives in Manhattan, found herself restless and anxious as 2011 approached, bringing with it the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and her brother's death. He was the first officer on United Flight 93, which crashed in rural southwestern Pennsylvania after the passengers and crew tried to wrestle control of the plane from terrorist hijackers.

Kiki had turned 45, her two kids were grown, and the looming milestone made her want to take stock and reorder her life. "What am I going to make of this year?" she asked herself. She hadn't done much of anything athletic since she had run the New York City Marathon in 2002 with a Flight 93 group. Homer decided she wanted to do the race again and emailed other Flight 93 family members this past January to gauge interest. Knowing them, she wasn't surprised when responses began flowing in.

Source: ESPN