Newport Beach marathon women gain much more than 26.2 miles along the path
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Girls’ trips are supposed to be fun, and six women friends from Newport Beach agree they have a good time whenever they hit the airport together.
Jill Carter, Julie Hart, Linda Wirta, Shannon Eusey, Patricia Fasola and Jennifer Buckley went sightseeing during their trip to Sydney, Australia in late August. They shopped. They completed a bridge climb to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
This was essentially a work trip, though. It’s just that most people’s definition of “work” is not running 26.2 miles.
Their quest to run every Abbott World Marathon Major, seven in all, took them down under to run the TCS Sydney Marathon on Aug. 31.
“We’re not slow either,” said Eusey, the youngest member of the group at 55, adding that they all qualified for Boston rather than paying for a charity spot. “We’re generally all in the top 10% of our age group, which is crazy. I don’t know what that is. Maybe we’re all just so damn competitive.”
Eusey said that fewer than 6,000 women worldwide had completed all six of the World Marathon Majors — Tokyo, London, Chicago, Berlin, Boston and New York — before Sydney was added. Now every member of this group of six friends has completed all seven.
Wirta, Hart and Buckley comprised the original group, which formed about 20 years ago. Now it’s grown to include others to share life with, a sort of second family, with the husbands and children not around. They meet Friday mornings for training and usually grab breakfast together afterward at a cafe near Fashion Island.
“It’s a really special way to travel through your life with your friends at your side, through all of life’s trials and tribulations, but then to also have these special adventures that I think the world marathons have provided us,” Wirta said. “It’s unique … We lift each other up on these runs. Life comes at you for all of us, there’s no getting around it. You’re going to have problems, but that morning time together changes your whole outlook. It carries you through.”
Some of the members had considered themselves retired, not running a marathon in several years. But when Sydney was added this year, everybody was in for another ride.
Buckley, the oldest member of the group at 67, has also run the most marathons — 86 and counting.
“I think the main thing is, we don’t give up, ever,” she said. “If we’re doing a run, we do it, whether we feel like garbage or we don’t … We’re all super faith-filled, and nobody ever talks poorly about their husband. I know in a lot of women’s groups, they do. People who come that don’t fit in, they kind of exclude themselves. They’re never bullied out or excluded.”
How exactly did they finish in Sydney? Fasola crossed first among the group in 3 hours, 50 minutes and 19 seconds. Hart, who said she had a tough run that included a fall where her glasses produced a cut above her eye, finished sixth among the group in a more than respectable time of 4:46.58.
“I went out slow in this race and I sent my family a message, ‘I have 10K left to go, say a prayer for me,’” Hart said. “Two miles later, I took a bad fall. I go, ‘You didn’t say your prayers!’
“I really don’t do well with long race running,” she added with a laugh. “I like 5Ks, but I’ve done them all. It’s more about the trip for me.”
There was also room in Sydney to praise another friend in the running group, Janina Pietsch. She crossed the finish line in 3:58.45, qualifying for Boston in the women’s 55-59 age group by a minute and change.
Pietsch had been trying to qualify for Boston for years and years, Wirta said.
“Janina’s win was all of our win,” Wirta said. “I felt it as strongly as if it was my own.”
Added Eusey: “We all cried for her. At 55 years old, she qualified for Boston.”
Though the women are competitive in their training, that doesn’t extend to their attitudes toward each other.
“We don’t compete with each other,” Eusey said. “We have girls — Marlene [Dandler] is a great example — who will come out and train us and help us qualify for a race. She won’t even run the race. Recently, I helped someone qualify for Boston.”
The good vibes extend to the children of the Newport Beach marathon women. Carter said her son Cayman, a former football quarterback at Corona del Mar High, ran the Orange County Marathon this year. She runs an annual mother-daughter marathon with her daughter Peyton, a star in girls’ volleyball and lacrosse in her time with the Sea Kings.
Eusey’s son Richard, who played lacrosse at CdM, just did a triathlon in Chicago and wants to run a Half-Ironman triathlon next.
“It’s good for our kids to see that we’re not just moms,” Carter said. “We have goals that we set, we work toward. Then they set their standards, where they want to work toward those goals.”
Wirta’s advice to other women is simple.
“Grab your girls and find your thing,” she said. “It may not be marathoning, but whatever it is, grab your girls and go out and do it. It is a great way to go through life.”
As for this group of women, they realize that Shanghai and Cape Town are candidates to be added to the World Marathon Majors list.
That provides an opportunity for new adventures.
After all, “retirement” is just a word, and the benefits of running are many.
“None of us need therapists,” Hart said. “We have each other.”
