Not so fast! Post-marathon proposal stopped by medic personnel

PITTSBURGH — The moment Bryan Peterson reached the finish line at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon alongside his girlfriend Veronica, he knew that after eight years; it was finally time to pop the question.

With hundreds of fellow runners and onlookers at the finish line, a visibly winded Peterson embraced his girlfriend, Veronica Carter, and then reached inside his left pocket for a diamond ring.

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“There was no plan B. This was it,” Peterson said. “I told her, ‘How hard I worked for the marathon, the training and to get through it is how hard I’m going to work for us.’”

Before he was able to get down on one knee for the surprise, they were whisked away by a member of UPMC's medical team, whose job was to check on each runner as they crossed the finish line, just seconds before their shining moment.

“I was just so happy he hadn’t gotten down on one knee before that, because that would’ve been so hard to watch,” Carter said.

A friend of the couple was aware of the upcoming proposal, so she was around to get a photo of the proposal. Instead, she found herself explaining to the medical personnel that the proposal was about to take place.

“Congratulations, but you have to move on,” replied the official.

Confused and dejected with his hand still in his left pocket, Peterson obeyed the official, keeping the ring in his pocket.

“I was sure there would be somebody saying, move along, but I thought no matter what, I’m doing it,” Peterson said. “It didn’t happen…”

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Peterson ended up finally getting to propose, 10 yards away from the original location. However, the element of surprise stopped at the finish line.

“The walk from where the finish line was to where I could actually get down on one knee seemed like another half marathon,” said Bryan. “I just kept walking like, ‘Okay, you know, can we stop now?’”

Carter, 25 and Peterson, 27, both participated in the half marathon. They originally met eight years ago in their hometown of Reno, Nevada, as employees at an Old Navy retail store.

When Carter finished undergrad at Gonzaga, the two decided to spend their first years together in Pittsburgh because they both were raised up as big Pittsburgh Steelers fans.

“We are both die-hard Steelers fans,” said Carter. “We started looking at schools, and we both just thought, ‘How cool would it be to live where the Steelers play?’ So we came.”

Despite growing up in Nevada, Peterson said that it was only right to do the proposal in Pittsburgh, the city that they loved from afar until recent years.

“I knew I wanted to propose in Pittsburgh, because that’s our story,” Peterson said.

Carter graduates from The University of Pittsburgh School of Law on Friday, and they both plan to move back to their hometown of Reno, ending their chapter in the Steel City.

WPXI