Their friendship began more than three decades ago in the fields and on the dirt roads of northwest Kingfisher County.

The latest and most accomplished chapter of their lifelong bond takes place Monday on the streets of Boston.

Hennessey High School graduates Gina Denten and Jennifer Storck will be among 20,000 runners taking part in the 125th Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest annual marathon.

“Going to Boston will be a dream come true,” Storck said.

“You’re happy with qualifying and happy you make the cut,” she said. “But getting there and finishing will be the ultimate.” • • •

Gina (Driskell) Denten grew up in Lacey where she honed her skills for a stellar sports career at Hennessey High School.

“I’ve always been a runner,” she said. “Even as a little kid, I ran around everywhere. Growing up at Lacey in the country, running down the country roads and across the pastures was just something I did.”

While at Hennessey, she was a part of the 1990 cross country state championship team as well as the track team that won state titles in 1989, 1990 and 1991.

Before graduating in 1992, she was a senior on the Lady Eagles’ basketball team that qualified for the Class 2A state tournament.

She earned scholarships to run cross country and play basketball at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

Jennifer (Hajek) Storck is originally from Ames.

Also a standout on the basketball court, she just missed out on playing on the same Hennessey team as Denten.

The school in Ames shut down after Storck’s sophomore year in 1992.

Hennessey was her landing spot.

After graduating in 1994, Storck played three years of basketball at the University of Oklahoma and then finished up her career at Phillips University in Enid.

Although their paths never actually crossed in the hallways of HHS, the two were already longtime friends.

With their families so close together – Denten’s in Lacey and Storck’s in Ames – the two were bonded early on by their love of riding horses.

“We grew up riding horses together,” Denten said. “We competed in all the local rodeos, horse shows and playdays around Kingfisher County.”

As they got older, horses transitioned to hardwood.

“Basketball was our thing,” Denten recalled. “We practiced together all the time, but only got to play on the same AAU team one summer.”

That team’s coaches included Jackie Snodgrass Sternberger.

After college, the physical distance between the two grew.

Storck’s husband, Brian, is in the U.S.Air Force. That landed them in Aledo, Texas, in 2008, where they still reside with their children Sawyer, 16, Kyle, 14 and Taylor, 9.

Denten began working for an engineering firm in Enid and was eventually transferred to the panhandle, where she met her husband, Lee.

They shared a love of hiking and exploring. That desire and job opportunities led them to a ranch near Cortez, Colo., and she’s worked for the same engineering firm for 16 years.

“That’s satisfying,” she said. “But I love to run.”

So Denten has never stopped.

She’s competed in 15 marathons, her first in 2009, and “so many half-marathons, probably 30 or so.”

Her ventures afoot have seen her compete not only in marathons in the U.S., but in Iceland, Finland and Switzerland.

She doesn’t just run to compete, however.

“I continue to run for health benefits and stress release, mostly,” she said. “I might have an issue that I need to solve and when I get back from running I have mental clarity and probably figured out a solution over the last 10 miles.”

Storck wasn’t always a runner.

A stay-at-home mom with three children, she began to run about 10 years ago “to lose baby weight and to feel better physically and mentally.”

“Running was my outlet and it was convenient,” she said. “I could run on a treadmill or push a stroller down the street and still take care of our kids.”

After she competed in her first 5K race, Storck admits she was hooked.

“I love setting goals, following a training plan and crossing the finish line in hopes of a PR.”

Storck has run 10 half-marathons. Boston will be her 10th full marathon.

Though not physically, Denten was there with Storck every step of the way.

“She inspired me to become a runner,” Storck said. “She always helped me because she had been a runner for so long and had a lot of knowledge.

“She was like a coach to me.”

Still, the two had never run a marathon together.

That changed in January 2019 when they stood side by side at the start of the Houston Marathon.

• • • Qualifying for the Boston Marathon is no easy task.

Simply put, a runner has to meet a qualifying time in a marathon that’s deemed a Boston qualifier, such as Houston.

That time varies from year to year, but the Boston Athletic Association, which organizes the race, also put a buffer in place that’s made it even tougher to meet the qualifying standard in each age group.

Though separated by only a couple of years, Denten and Storck actually competed in different age groups.

“Since I had crossed over into another age group, I actually had five more minutes (to meet the qualifying standard),” Denten said.

But qualifying for the Boston Marathon wasn’t on her mind.

Denten admits Storck is a faster runner than her.

“We were hoping she would qualify that day. That was the plan,” Denten said. “My plan was to stay with her as long as I could.”

At the start of the race, the temperature was 34 degrees.

That’s chilly in Houston.

“But for me, training in Colorado, that’s like any other day except it’s at sea level,” Denten said.

With the elements working in her favor, Denten “kept up” with Storck easier and longer than expected.

Unfortunately for Storck, she wasn’t feeling as strong as she knew Denten was.

“It just kind of happened that I thought she was on pace (to qualify for Boston),” Storck recalled. “I wasn’t feeling the finish kick like I knew she was capable and I didn’t want to hold her back.

“I could tell she was going to do it so I told her to go.”

Denten said at about the 17th mile was when her mindset truly changed from pushing Storck to qualifying herself.

“I felt good and that I was on the right track,” she said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to do this.’”

So “go” she did.

Her time of 3:44:21 proved good enough in her age group to qualify for Boston in 2020.

Storck just missed out.

“If I was six months older, I would have made it,” she said.

But she didn’t give up. Storck returned to Houston in 2020 determined to meet the standard.

This time she didn’t have Denten by her side. Still, she managed to make her mark and her time of 3:44:50 put her into Boston.

“I felt I did almost everything I could to give myself the best opportunity to qualify,” she said.

However, Denten’s qualifier put her in the 2020 Boston Marathon. Storck’s landed her in the 2021 race.

But when COVID-19 struck, it turned the 2020 Boston race into a virtual event.

Denten ran it in her familiar Colorado surroundings with her three rescue dogs.

“They are usually more excited about heading out for a run than I am,” she said. “They go with me almost every run, so they are trained to run that far, too.”

Fortunately, the 2020 qualifiers were put into the pool for the 2021 race as well.

Unfortunately, the pool was trimmed from 30,000 to 20,000.

Both Denten and Storck’s status as qualifiers was unknown. Eventually, both received the good news.

They’d be running in Boston…together.

It’s not a feat Denten every felt she’d accomplish.

“I didn’t think it would ever be in my abilities,” said Denten, whose brother, Chad Driskell, lives on the Lacey farm where they grew up and whose mother, Kay Howard, and grandmother live in Enid.

“I just had the most perfect day and the most perfect weather. All the stars aligned and I ran the best race I’ve ever had.”

Storck, whose father, Frank Pospisil, lives in Hennessey and mother, Terrie Wollard, in Ames, is equally excited.

“We never thought either one of us would do some thing like this,” Storck said. “It just goes to show that in the right place, the right time and right conditions, it can happen.”

It will happen together, not in the pastures between Ames and Lacey, but in one of the most prestigious races in the world.

• • • Gina Denten and Jennifer Storck run to better themselves.

“My day just goes a whole lot better if I get my run in first thing,” Denten said.

But there’s more to it. Getting out of bed to run in the dark isn’t easy. Pushing through the pain isn’t easy. Grinding mile after mile isn’t easy.

“Some mornings I just don’t feel like running,” Denten admitted.

But it’s not just about Gina Denten.

“I often think about all of those people out there who wish they could run. Then I head out the door just for them,” she said.

“The folks that have disabilities and illnesses, but yet they still press forward? They inspire me to keep logging the miles while I still can.”

And it’s not just about Jennifer Storck.

“I do run for my physical and mental well-being, for the high I feel after having a great race.

“And I run for my kids.” Storck said she wants to be their example.

“I want them to see what it looks like to have dreams, set goals, work hard and accomplish them,” she said.

“I want them to make being strong, healthy and fit a lifestyle.”

And although Storck trains in Texas and Denten in Colorado, they hope the fact they’re running Monday in Boston is an inspiration to a young boy or girl in Kingfisher County.

“Even if you’re not the best at your school, it can be a lifelong hobby,” Denten said.

“And you can still achieve big goals in life, even if you’re just a has-been from Hennessey High School.”