CUMBERLAND — You’re never too old — or too young — to run a 26.2-mile marathon.
That seemed to be the unofficial theme of the 2010 Mountain Maryland Marathon Festival, held at Canal Place on Sunday.
Take, for example, Donald Siefers of Bradfordwoods, Pa., or “Marathon Don,” as he introduced himself. Siefers estimated that Sunday’s race was somewhere around his 250th marathon. He was a bit disappointed with his performance, but said he hasn’t been training as hard as in previous years. He is 74.
“All these people, at the end, they’re all big on life,” Siefers said of becoming interested in marathon running as a middle-aged man. “I thought, these people are not like the rest of the world, angry and frustrated with life. I want to hang out with these people.”
Then there were Christian and Carson Robinette, brothers from Fort Ashby, W.Va. Christian, 11, and Carson, 9, were the youngest runners to participate in, and complete, the full marathon.
Christian said they became interested by watching their dad run in events. At the finish line, he put the experience in perspective.
“Sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes you feel like you don’t want to do it,” he said. “But it feels really good right now.”
About 515 runners from 17 states and Washington, D.C., participated in the day’s six races. Some were veteran marathoners who travel to different races each weekend, while others ran their first-ever full marathon Sunday.
Sally Weyant of Centerville, Pa., was one of the first-timers.
“It was good, but I’m tired,” she laughed at the finish line. “I just wanted to finish under the time limit.”
Jerry Boone of Washington Court House, Ohio, said it was his first time at the Mountain Maryland Marathon, and he plans to be back next year.
While many runners spoke of the exhausting 10.5-mile climb along the Great Allegheny Passage, Boone said the long downhill portion of the course was just as difficult.
“It’s almost harder than the uphill,” he said of the joint-jarring experience.
Julie Baker, a certified public accountant from Frostburg, agreed.
“It’s tough going uphill, but then you have to kind of re-adjust your legs to come down,” she said.
If running one marathon is difficult, running two in two days sounds downright brutal.
But that’s exactly what Greg Gillespie and Renee Shaw of San Antonio did for fun this weekend.
Their journey up and down the Great Allegheny Passage was the second leg of a two-day marathon extravaganza that began Saturday with the Charlottesville Marathon in Virginia.
Shaw said it was partly to celebrate her birthday, which was Saturday, and partly to help Gillespie train for a 100-mile marathon coming up in February.
In the meantime, with two consecutive days of marathon running under their belts, they’ve set their sights on the next level — three marathons in 10 days.
But why go through all the effort, the exhaustion, the sore legs and stiff joints?
“We just wanted to see if we could do it,” Shaw said.
Contact Megan Miller at mmiller@times-news.com.
Local News
Related Photos
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Participants start the Mountain Maryland Marathon on Harrison Street in Cumberland early Sunday morning. John A. Bone/Times-News
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April Bautista-Mathias, right, from Cumberland, who ran in the 5k race, pins a number on her 3-year-old daughter Amanita for the tot trot Sunday. About 515 participants competed in the day’s events
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