Just a Quick Jog ... to the 'Pru'

So, you're hanging around with nothing to do; you're sick of studying for midterms, and it's just a blase Sunday. Well, exercise is good for you--why not take a little 26 1/2-mile run?

What's that? Take my suggestion and stick it where?

C'mon, a little marathon never hurt anyone. You say you have no experience--never ran a marathon before. Big deal. Lemme tell ya a little story.

I know this junior woman who lives over in Lowell House. The real jock type--you know, she's played varsity hoop, soccer and ran track. Yeah, she pretends to be an academic. You know, a Fine Arts major (though she says she's writing a thesis next year).

She's from Albequerque. That's right--New Mexico. No, she doesn't drink tequilla. Her name's Ellen Hart.

Well, anyway, she's been a distance runner on and off for years. Typical junior high school star, schoolgirl scholar-athlete; but she always dreamed about running a marathon. (I know--weird dream). So then she comes to Harvard and goes to see the Big One--the Boston Marathon--her freshman year. She tells me. "I was bitten by the bug." Crazy kid decided she had to run the Boston Marathon.

But you know freshmen. She ran real erratically--35 miles one week and a brisk jog to classes the next. What do you expect, though? She was busy making time as a freshman-guard-with-deadly-quickness-turned-soccer-devotee. Scalise (Bob--women's soccer coach) thought she was the most--real speedy on the wing.

So she's cruising along until about Valentine's Day 1979, when this guy Tom Costin (K-School student, older brother of Ellen's roommate, swimming star Maura Costin) tells Ellen about the Lowell Marathon. It's March 11 and it's the last chance to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

So Ellen decides she'll push to make the road race. The Costin guy encourages her, and for three weeks she starts doing 60 miles a week. Just like that. "It was a big push effort," she tells me. "I just needed to get to bed at a certain hour each day. Lots of sleep."

So last Monday she runs 18 miles, the most she'd ever run; and then she goes out to Lowell Sunday. She needs a 3:30.00 to qualify for the Boston race (yes, that's hours). So what does she do? The nervy kid runs a 3:11.30, finishes as the first woman, qualifies--the whole shot, and she'd never run more than 18 miles before the race.

"If I had crawled across the finish line in 3:29.59 I would've been happy," she tells me. She says, "I just though it'd be fun." She's modest. She says she "wasn't aware" of her position until near the end of the race. "I just wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon," she says.

But why run 26 1/2 miles? "It's road racing, which is a different kind of distance running. You're just going out there because you enjoy what you're doing. There's lots of time to think. You get real tired at the end but at that point, it's easier to keep running--it'd take a lot longer to walk to the finish."

So she ran 26 1/2 miles--big deal. After all, she finished 217th out of 800 runners, even if she was the first woman to cross the tape. She's still the same person. She said the last few miles were tough. "They didn't go past as swiftly as I wanted them to," she says. Her legs are a little sore. Her mom was thrilled. So was she. And now she can fulfill her dream--running in the Boston Marathon.

But still, no big deal. Right?

OK--I'll be looking for you on the streets next Sunday. Don't worry--I'll bring the stretcher.