by Denise Devaney | Social Media Editor

The three of the women from the Cross Country Team here at PC, including me, have decided to run the Myrtle Beach Marathon on March 3. Junior Sally Hart was the first to sign up last semester, then junior Ripley Fricano and I were inspired to run it and signed up at the beginning of the semester.

I asked Sally what inspired her to start running, “I first started running when I was 10 years old because my mom was training for a 5k, and I thought it sounded fun. Since then, my mom and my granddad have been my biggest inspirations for running. My mom is the reason I started running. She’s been with me from the time we ran our first 5k to when we decided to do our first half and still runs races with me today. She has always been my biggest fan and is always up for a new challenge.”

Running has been passed down in Sally’s family, “My granddad was a state champion in track and always pushes me to do my best and finish with nothing left. As I went through high school, running became a bigger part of my life, and I knew I wanted to run in college. Running is how I process what’s happened during the day and just think. I also love the competitive aspect and seeing what I can handle.”

I then asked her about finding PC, “I found PC because my parents had looked at coming here when they were in school. I prayed for a long time about what college to choose, and PC just seemed right in a lot of ways. I love how it is small, but not too small (I went to a small high school, so PC was big for me when I got here), and it feels like a family.” 

Sally has debated running a marathon before, “I’ve been running half marathons for a few years now and have been thinking of doing a marathon for a long time. I love long distance running and the challenge it poses. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to run a marathon now, I just wanted to try something new and to see how it felt to run farther than I’ve ever gone before. So far, I love the training and think that this will be the first of many marathons! I’m excited to see how it goes and see how the team finishes!”

As for what inspired me to run, I grew up with a mom who was an avid runner. She has done triathlons, half marathons, and full marathons. I think the first sign that I was born to run was when I decided to run with my mom’s running group one day with no training, and I managed to run five miles and beat my mom. Before then, I’ve never run more than one mile at a time. I started running occasionally after that, and then I joined the Cross Country team my freshman year to stay in shape. The next year, I was on the varsity team for Cross Country and Track. I’ve been running on a team ever since then. Thanks to my mom, I would’ve never found running.

I found PC thanks to Bea DiBona who was on my high school team and ran for the team at PC. I looked there and a few other places, but overall I loved how small PC was, and I loved my team’s camaraderie. I knew I wanted to run in college my senior year because I knew I would miss the competitiveness of Cross Country and the feeling of accomplishment after finishing a race.

Before being on this team, I thought runners who ran more than thirteen miles were crazy. I’ve never run more than nine miles before I started my training for the marathon, and I didn’t see a point in running more than that if I only raced three miles. I came back from Christmas Break and was talking to Ripley about how our breaks went, and she was telling me about all of the New Year’s Resolutions she’s made. One of her resolutions was running the Myrtle Beach Marathon with Sally in March. I was baffled at how she just signed up without putting much thought into it besides finding a way to stay motivated and keep up the mileage per week. She asked if I wanted to run it with her, and I said, “What the hell” and signed up too. I know, it’s an inspiring story.

As I said before, I never wanted to run a marathon until now. I thought about running the Princess Half in Disney, but I never committed to it (the registration date is a year in advance, so that was also another factor). Since I’ve signed up for the marathon, I’ve actually gotten more excited with each week passing by. I’m looking forward to challenging myself mentally and physically and feeling that accomplishment of running 26.2 miles.

I’m not sure if this marathon will be my first to many. The thought of doing another marathon after Myrtle Beach isn’t something I’m shying away from. I think I will be so exhausted after the marathon that I’ll swear to never run one again, but I’ll probably be looking for another one within the next week.