That's me in the blue, heading up Heartbreak Hill

By Davi-Ellen Chabner

On this morning of the 2010 Boston Marathon, I‘m thinking about where I have been for the past nine years:  At the starting line in Hopkinton, wondering if I have it in me to run through pain and 26.2 miles to the finish line.

Why, one might ask, did I — at age 57, never a distance runner, not in the qualifying-time group, and on the heels of breast cancer treatment – decide in 2001 to run Boston?

In the summer of 2000, my daughter (who usually motivates me) had said, “Mom, you should start running again.”  I had run in the 1970s and 1980s, but stopped after knee problems and followed that up with 20 years of non-aerobic activity on the golf course.  So my husband and I entered a 5K race supporting “Friends Fighting Breast Cancer” for the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.

By some great fluke, I came in first in my age group (50 and up) and was handed a huge trophy! At that race, the woman organizing a Boston Marathon team for MGH approached me to join them. I was doubtful about accepting the challenge. I had never run 10 miles, let alone 26.2!

So, why did I say “yes?”  Looking back on that decision these are my thoughts:

– Growing up in the 50s and 60s when there were few opportunities for women to play sports. I had wanted to be “in training” and do something extraordinary athletically. I saw the marathon as a great challenge and that chance – even at 57.

– Of course, I also wanted to convince myself that I was still strong and healthy, even after surgery and chemotherapy for breast cancer.  I thought about other women who had faced serious illness and wanted to prove something for them as well.

Bottom line: I was passionate about the challenge and not afraid to put myself through the grueling training, including daily runs in winter cold and wind, painful stretching, and cross-training. I read Jeff Galloway’s book on marathon training and believed him about being able to train ANYONE to run a marathon.  I believed in myself.

Once I started down that first momentous mile in Hopkinton and heard the crowd cheer, I knew it WAS all worth it — every minute, every hamstring and piriformis twinge, every screaming quadriceps and hip flexor. When the going got tough, I chanted my “YOU CAN DO IT” mantra and with conditioning, endurance and mental toughness on my side, I willed myself through the miles to the finish that first time in April 2001.

So why do it again – nine more times? (I did New York in 2002). Sure, I craved the excitement and euphoria that I knew would be there on race day.  But, what I really discovered was that the marathon had became a metaphor for my life. It was about meeting serious challenges to the body, mind, and spirit in both training and race – and deciding to summon the determination and courage to finish, and finish strong.

And because I received my number by raising money for the pediatric oncology unit at MGH, I was not just doing this for myself. I was helping kids fight cancer. That was a huge motivator.  Over the years, those brave kids became a part of my life and journey.  Knowing that they were battling more than 26.2 miles, cheering ME onward, and counting on me to finish, propelled me forward – and inspires me today.

Look for me. I’ll be cheering.

Davi-Ellen Chabner is an avid golfer, photographer, instructor of medical terminology and author of 3 books: The Language of Medicine, 9th edition, Medical Terminology: A Short Course, 5th edition, and Medical Language Instant Translator, 4th edition. She has run 9 Boston Marathons and 1 New York Marathon in the past 9 years. She mentors in an after-school program for inner city girls (Mellon Academy of Goodwill Industries) and is on the board of The Boston Conservatory and Friends of the MGH Cancer Center.  She is perhaps best known as grandmother to Bebe, Solomon, Ben, Gus, and Louisa Rose.

]]> http://fairgamenews.com/2010/04/why-at-57-i-decided-to-run-the-boston-marathon-nine-times/feed/ 1 http://fairgamenews.com/2009/11/childbirth-a-barrier-not-when-five-of-six-top-nyc-marathon-winners-are-moms/ http://fairgamenews.com/2009/11/childbirth-a-barrier-not-when-five-of-six-top-nyc-marathon-winners-are-moms/#comments Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:47:29 +0000 Laura Pappano http://fairgamenews.com/?p=639

By Laura Pappano

It has become a provocative theme: Marathons and motherhood. Five of the top six women to cross the finish line in the 2009 ING New York City Marathon are moms.

1.    Winner Derartu Tulu, 37, of Ethiopia – an two time Olympic gold medalist at 10,000 meters in 1992 and 2000 – was making a comeback to the sport after giving birth to her second daughter in 2006, and having adopted four orphaned children.
2.    Ludmila Petrova, 41, of Russia won the 2000 NYC Marathon, but had taken seven years off to raise daughters Inna and Sasha.
3.    Christelle Daunay, 34, of France. Not a mom (as best as research suggests).
4.    Paula Radcliffe, 35, of Great Britain, famously won the 2007 NYC Marathon 10 months after giving birth to her daughter and hinted in a pre-marathon press conference that she wanted to try to have a second child before the 2012 Olympics.
5.    Salina Kosgei, 32, of Kenya who won the 2009 Boston Marathon, has two children, Billy (born in 1996) and Ruth (born in 2001). Plus, she’s also employed in a job other than running: she and husband Barnabas Kinyor, both work as prison guards.
6.   Magdalena Lewy Boulet, 36, of the USA, is mother to four-year-old Owen and ran right up to the day before she gave birth.

The fact that five top finishers are mothers plainly challenges myths about the destructive effect of childbirth on athletic performance. This has been a recent theme in other sports – tennis, beach volleyball, basketball – and, we can hope, will fuel a broader revelation: Your body isn’t wrecked by pregnancy and childbirth.

The emphasis, however, has been on female physical resiliency. But interestingly, a more resonant message – one that has applications for women inside and outside of athletic contexts – was articulated by both Boulet and Radcliffe in press interviews surrounding today’s race.

Both stressed the psychological benefits of competing as a mother. Marathon running is challenging, both physically and mentally. And not just during the race, but in managing through intense training and setbacks. (Radcliffe has been recovering from bunion surgery.)

In a video clip you can watch here, Boulet observes that while “there’s plenty of bad workouts and bad races” that as a mother, “I don’t have time to think about that.”  Likewise, Radcliffe notes that motherhood has put into perspective the criticisms she’s faced in her racing career, allowing her to swiftly distance herself from critics and focus on her own career goals.

To parents, this reality may be obvious. But in the workplace, in competitive settings, there remains a view that motherhood is a distraction from tasks and career ascent, rather than what it is: Something that helps one clarify, prioritize, and — yes — get things done.

Those are skills useful in governing, managing, top-level decision-making, and — yes — marathon running.

By Laura Pappano

That blur you see is a 45-year-old woman breaking a record. (OK, snapping with an iPhone enhances the effect in this case).

That’s right. Yesterday at the Stratton Faxon New Haven Road Race — which was also the Men’s and Women’s 20K National Championships — Colleen DeReuck set a world record for women over 45 when she crossed the finish line at the New Haven Green on Temple Street in 1:07:19.  While the cool, clear weather didn’t hurt her cause (although the breeze near the waterfront was stiff), DeReuck’s victory — like the victory of filly Rachel Alexandra at the Woodward Stakes the same weekend — should force us to, not just to cheer, but to think.

Much of how we view sport is about expectations. We have comfortable notions of what female horses ought to be able to do against (allegedly stronger, faster) male horses. And we have notions about what 45-year-old female runners ought to be able to do against younger runners (especially over a distance that is not an ultra marathon, but a relatively quick 20K).

It is hard to know if we are in the midst of two impressive, but isolated athletic feats by a woman and a female horse — or if we have been so duped into believing that age and gender are barriers to winning that we are surprised by such performances. If we look back to the Boston Marathon, we can recall DeReuck leading the pack at mile 17. Rachel Alexandra has been 8 for 8 in the winner’s circle. Both can clearly run.

Given the relatively brief history of women’s distance running (women weren’t permitted to run the Olympic Marathon until 1984) and what appears in Rachel Alexandra’s case, an owner interested in breaking with convention, this may be less a blip for the history books than a new plateau upon which others may follow.

And, by the way, while the focus surrounding DeReuck was all about her victory over younger, elite women, please note that she beat an awful lot of younger, elite men, including her 44-year-old husband, Darren (he finished in 1:08:22).

The lead women’s pack at mile 18 of The Boston Marathon 2009

One of the most frustrating things about watching the Boston Marathon is that it’s hard to tell how fast the runners are. I’m not talking TV coverage or the delay in the Boston Athletic Association website in recording runners’ progress (it’s actually a GREAT site). Or even the what-just-went-past? sensation one has watching from the race course.

What I mean is that we are keenly aware – especially this year – of how much slower the elite women’s pack was than the elite men’s pack. But that glaring gap misses the story.

Pause to note: This comment doesn’t diminish the fact that the women’s race was a riveting, nail-biting-scream-at-your-TV-exciting finish. American Kara Goucher put on a stunning effort for the USA, finishing third at 2:32:25. And she wasn’t even the one offering the tape line drama of Salina Kosgei of Kenya edging out Dire Tune of Ethiopia  — that’s 2:32:16 over Tune’s 2:32:17. Tune collapsed at the finish line. (Wouldn’t you, if you’d just lost a 26.2 mile race by ONE SECOND??!!)

My point, though: The men’s race was less dramatic, but swifter, with Deriba Merga gliding across the finish at 2:08:42, nearly a minute ahead of second place finisher Daniel Rono of Kenya and Ryan Hall of the USA.

BUT because the women’s race begins before the men’s race and because results are reported by gender first, the take-away is about how much faster the men are than the women (and, again, particularly this year when the women started off slow – the part of marathon running that is not about sheer speed but about gaming and strategy and how to beat your field).

Yet, if we look at the big picture of marathon running, we see that – heck – many of these really good women are running as fast as these really good men. Take Colleen De Reuck of Colorado (she led the women for a few moments at mile 18), who finished in 2:35:37, that was top among women aged 45-49. A little-made comparison: She came in second among the men in the 45-49 age group, right after Oleg Strizhakov of Florida (2:31:27) but before Michael Platt of Massachusetts (2:39:07).

Go through the race results and you find women finishing among top men around their own age. In the 40-44 age group, Alina Ivanova of Florida (2:36:50) was just a few seconds behind Robert Landry of Massachusetts (2:36:46), who finished 10th among his age peers.

Marathons are reported as men’s races and women’s races, but when we look beyond gender, it’s hard to miss the other story: There’s an awful lot of overlap among really good male and female distance runners.

As a freshmen at Wellesley College, I gawked at a larger than life poster hanging in Boston’s Prudential Center that featured a blurred runner and hundreds of smart, attractive, and energetic women cheering wildly, along with the tag line: “Sometimes losing your hearing is the best inspiration.”

“What is that?” I asked a senior.  Only one of the coolest aspects of the Boston Marathon, she explained.

Better than any water stop — or group of random fans – the stretch of Route 135 which borders Wellesley College is known as “the Wellesley Scream Tunnel” and is the official emotional high point of the race. It’s the Motivational Mount Olympus to the dreaded inner Hades that is Heartbreak Hill.

“As a runner going through Wellesley, you know if you make eye contact with someone, or gesture to them, letting them know you need support, you will get it,” says Ben Temple, a teacher and cross country coach at Wesstown School in Pennsylvania who is running his second Boston Marathon. There is no missing it: As runners come off the stone bridge on Bacon Street, they hear the roar of the women of Wellesley waiting for them on route 135 just opposite a large digital clock offering their half-marathon split.

“You’ve got to try not to get too excited,” says Temple. “The Scream Tunnel comes at the half-way mark, when you really need the energy, but I have to keep reminding myself to keep pace and not speed up. I try to remember what the scream tunnel sounded like once I reach Heartbreak Hill.”

As one of the cheering masses, I experienced my first Boston Marathon as a freshman the spring of 2007, standing in the rain and yelling encouragement as runners passed. Each year it goes down about the same: The elites wave — if they are far enough ahead of the pack. The first set of “weekend warriors,” mostly men ages 18-35 are pretty intense, too (that’s where you’ll find a Ben Temple). They might wave or smile. Sometimes students know a runner and – well – cover your ears.

What’s important about this Wellesley tradition (it’s our equivalent of Homecoming), is we are out there for hours – and hours.

Of course, it gets more fun as the pack swells. It’s a Wellesley tradition that mid and-back-of the packers often stop and give or get a kiss. The runners who smooch are typically pretty sweaty, but as Megan Wood, Wellesley class of 2010 and one of the stars of our softball team puts it, “I think its kind of disgusting but they have come so far I might as well kiss them.”

We don’t have football like Harvard or men’s lacrosse like Johns Hopkins to rally around, but I find it appropriate that the Boston Marathon excites the Wellesley campus. Wellesley women work hard, spending hours mastering their subjects in the library, the lab, or at their desks. It seems incredibly fitting that we get excited about a sport that takes months of grueling practice and tests the limits of the human body. Training for hours and days is something we understand – and gladly cheer for.

Sarah Odell is a junior at Wellesley College who will represent the U.S. this July in Squash at the Maccabi Games in Israel.