A 24-year-old youth pastor collapsed and died at the Portland marathon Sunday, only a mile after he stopped to kiss his wife and looked strong enough to finish.
New York Post reporting on the tragedy lays out how Treyton “Trey” Lara went down around mile 20 after months of training, then never came home.
Doctors later told his wife he had gone into cardiac arrest. By the time he reached the hospital, they said it was too late.
Lara was a youth pastor, a newly married husband, and a familiar face to kids who knew him as Uncle Trey. He was just shy of his 25th birthday.
His wife, Aundrey Shin-Lara, told KPTV she saw no warning signs that morning. He had trained for months. Running, she said, was how he unwound.
She described the last good moment on the course.
"I saw him at 18, 19. He ran over and was able to smile and give me a kiss, and then he ran off, and he looked good,"
About a mile later, he collapsed. The Portland marathon draws thousands of runners each year. Most finish. Lara did not.
She said he had been healthy, with no underlying medical conditions she knew of. The sudden cardiac arrest left the family stunned.
Besides the work of ministry, Lara had spent the summer helping open a youth camp called Camp Genesis. People close to him described a young man who treated faith and friendship as the same calling.
Aundrey put it in plain terms after his death.
"Besides loving Jesus, he loved his friends and family. He was the best big brother, Tio to so many cousins, and some of our friends’ kids would call him Uncle Trey,"
A GoFundMe page for the family filled in the rest of the portrait. It said he loved film, kept a Letterboxd account, treated popcorn like a delicacy, collected clothes, cooked well, chased good coffee, and made friends easily. The page said he had an unmatched sense of humor.
Donors answered. The fundraiser climbed to close to $60,000 as word of his death spread.
Aundrey has spoken publicly about the shock that still hits without warning. One moment the loss feels impossible. The next, she is living it.
"The grief is coming in waves where one moment it still doesn’t feel real where we’re like I’m just gonna wake up, and he’s gonna be over there,"
She also said the love people have shown for Trey is helping her through the worst of it. Her final public note was not about the race. It was about the vow.
"He’s the love of my life, always will be. And we’ll see him again,"
That is the measure of a short life spent on faith, family, and the people he served, and of a finish line no training log can prepare a young husband to meet.
