Star-Journbal Editor
In the early winter darkness on the 13-Mile Road, headlights beam on a bundled-up runner.
The woman waves a quick thanks to a car that swings wide to give her room where there is no shoulder.
The woman is Marlys Plett, 52, mother of two, grandmother of three, and Hillsboro resident, putting another mile behind her.
Over the next five months, she'll log 1,600 miles on the 13-mile Road, officially named Indigo, and at the end will be not U.S.-50, but the Boston Marathon.
The world's oldest annual marathon, the most prestigious running event, the second largest single-day sporting event in terms of onsite coverage, behind only the Super Bowl.
Tonight, she runs alone. It is cold. But on April 16, 2007, Plett will join some 22,500 of the world's most accomplished runners on the 26.2-mile course for the 111th running of the Boston Marathon.
Approximately 500,000 spectators will line the course. They will shout, "Go Marlys!" and "Go Plett!" as she runs by, this runner from Kansas, who nobody knows because it is customary at Boston for runners to write their first name on one upper arm and their last name on the other in black marker, so she can be cheered by name by an appreciative crowd, who see in these brave, courageous, athletes endurance beyond what the average weekend warrior seems capable of.
Tonight, she runs alone.
In Boston, in the springtime, she will become an anonymous icon of American heroism.
When she ran the Wichita Marathon back in October, her goal was crossing the finish line; running the whole way without stopping. She did. Placing 90th out of 324 men and women and as the 16th woman finisher in all age groups.
Her time of 3:46.58, an average time of 8:27 per mile, was not significant to her because she'd never run a marathon before.
Her legs locked up at the finish and she had to be carried to the massage table. She felt bone-cold. Stiff. Numb. Old.
Within a few minutes, when her body began to recover from the shock, she felt elated, euphoric, as if she'd brought a child into the world, gone through hours of labor and delivered a healthy baby.
"I would run 26 miles again, just to feel that feeling again," she said.
Her husband, Tom, was waiting at the finish line. They embraced. They had been together, four days a week on the 13-Mile road.
She ran alone, but Tom was always there, waiting up the road a mile or so. Do you need a drink? Water, Gatorade? he'd ask. Most of the time she'd put a thumb up and shake her head, no. You're looking good! he'd shout, as she ran by. Then he'd start up the truck, pass her and park another mile or so up the road.
In the late afternoon and early evening, during the summer, when the heat would not let go, she ran.
Need a drink? he'd ask. Yes! She'd gulp a few swallows. Toss the cup. You're looking great! Away she'd go.
According to her meticulously-kept log book, Plett ran 1,067 miles in the six months prior to running the Wichita Marathon.
Most on the 13-Mile Road.
Using a workout schedule for first-time marathoners she found on the Internet, she ran about half of those miles in what is called the pre-conditioning phase, and the rest in pre-race mode.
The runs lengthened over time, from six to 12, then 15 to 18, and then once at 23 miles. By then she knew she was ready to go.
A regular runner for 12 years, Plett had run her share of shorter road races over 5-kilometers (3.5 miles).
But she'd never run further than 10 miles in her life before she decided to see if she could, just once, run all the way from the highway (U.S.-50) to Hillsboro on the 13-Mile Road.
"I thought about it for three years, off and on, and I never felt I could. Then one day I told Tom, 'take me down to the end of the 13-Mile Road and I'll run back to town and see how it is."
She ran the distance in under two hours. Like a drug user discovering a forgotten stash, she was hooked.
"Now I've just got to go, I've got to." she said, of her distance-running regimen. "It becomes an addiction."
The name "marathon" comes from the legend of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier. According to the legend, Pheidippides was sent from the town of Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been miraculously defeated in the Battle of Marathon.
It is said that he ran the entire distance, 26.2 miles, without stopping, but moments after proclaiming his message to the city, he collapsed and died.
Pheidippides should have trained more. Today, the goal of most long distance runners is to run at least one marathon in their life, to prove to themselves they can do it.
But a few runners, like Plett, find that in achieving that one marathon a genetic switch turns on, and they discover to their delight that they were born to run.
On and on.
For mile after mile.
Plett runs for many reasons. Most distance runners have some of the same physical and mental characteristics. Light weight, wiry muscles, iron will, and there always seems to be that extra ingredient that allows them to make the body do what the brain won't.
What makes Plett run?
Is it her humble background? ("We were dirt poor.")
Is it her desire to distance herself from the habit formed as a teen-ager? ("I started smoking when I was 16 and smoked for 16 years. I say 'how could you have done that to yourself?'")
Is it her fixation to weigh in at exactly 111 pounds? ("If I'm a couple of pounds overweight it drives me crazy.")
Or, her ability to run through barriers of pain? ("I had the worst trouble with a few of my toes. I went to the podiatrist. I told him I couldn't run. He said that's part of being a runner. Buck it up. Live with the pain. I had to learn to live with it. Here it is December, and my fourth toe is as black as it can be from that marathon. But the doctor was right, it really wasn't a problem any more, they just toughened up.")
Perhaps it isn't so much of what she's been running toward, as much as what she's running from.
Every day at her job as an intake receptionist at Wichita Clinic Bethel in Newton, Plett sees a long parade of feeble, sick, and generally unhealthy people. By the end of the work day, she's grateful that she can go home, tie on her Asics, and run.
"At the clinic, you see so many people who are wheelchair-bound. I'm always thankful that I've got my legs and that I can run."
Shortly after her climactic run in Wichita, while she was still high from an endorphin overdose, a race organizer in the know said, "Your time qualified you for Boston!"
They said she'll never again have to settle for running in the Wichita Marathon; she's Big Time now.
Plett had no idea what they were talking about. She had never heard of "Boston" and had no clue what she had qualified for.
They explained to Plett that by running a 3:46.58, she'd obliterated the qualifying standard of 4:05 for a 52-year-old woman.
"You qualified for Boston!" they repeated, over and over.
Runners from all over the globe would gladly pay to run the race, but can't. Like the Olympics, the Boston Marathon is a qualifiers-only event.
The standards are so high that very few ever get in, no matter who they are, or where they're from.
Which makes it so remarkable that a first-time marathon runner can get there from the 13-Mile Road.
When the postcard arrived in the mail from the Boston Athletic Association, saying she'd qualified, it finally hit home. Tom made the hotel reservations and booked the flight, which will be the first time she's ever flown.
Alone, in the dark, on the road, the training has begun. Instead of sweltering heat, most of her miles will be run in bone-chilling cold.
When race day dawns in Boston, Plett will have run far enough to run from Hillsboro to Boston and halfway back.
That's about 1,600 miles, for the privilege of running 26.2 more — with 22,500 fellow runners, through streets lined with a half a million cheering supporters, including Tom.
The runner's high she felt before will be hers again following 26.2 miles of glory — after about 123 runs on the 13-Mile Road, alone.
