For her fortieth birthday, Ginny Heatwole gave herself an unusual present.

“I started running again!” says Heatwole, who ran competitively in high school but hadn’t trained in over twenty years. “I decided to do an 8k race and get back in shape.”

For the next few years, Heatwole, now 53, continued her return into the running world, training diligently and racing 8ks and 10ks. But as her fiftieth birthday crept closer, Heatwole felt inspired to take on the competitive runner’s most daunting challenge: a marathon.

“For my fiftieth, I decided to do a full marathon, mainly to prove to myself that age was just a number, and I could do it as a 50-year-old,” Heatwole explains. “I started training with the Sports Backers Marathon Training Team and was really excited.” Unfortunately, “my plan completely backfired!” she says with a laugh.

At the thirteenth mile of the SunTrust Richmond Marathon in Virginia, her femurs “pretty much gave out,” and she was forced to drop out halfway through. She later discovered that she had a severe stress fracture and was unable to train for six months.

Despite the setback, Heatwole was undeterred, still determined to prove that she could handle all 26.2 miles.

She returned to the Marathon Training Team and completed the SunTrust Richmond Marathon at 51 and then again the following year at 52. However, she found her favorite distance the following year when she decided to run the marathon’s companion event, the McDonald’s Half Marathon. She joined the Half Marathon Training Team to prepare for the race.

The fourteen-week Half Marathon Training Program begins on August 7^th and is designed to prepare members for the McDonald’s Half Marathon on November 13^th. Members receive personal training schedules and advice from an experienced team of coaches and participate in weekly group runs downtown. The cost for joining the team covers the registration fee for the McDonald’s Half Marathon.

While another stress fracture prevented her from finishing the actual race last year, Heatwole says that the fun she had preparing for the event with the Half Marathon Training Team made up for the disappointment.

“It’s really great to run with other people who have similar goals,” she explains. “I always thought that the training was more important that the race itself. I met some really great people and have great friends on the team.”

In fact, she liked it so much that she will be an assistant coach of the team this year, providing support and guidance for her teammates.

“I definitely recommend joining the training team if you are running the half [marathon],” she says. “It’s a lot of fun, and the support you get is unbelievable.”

If you are interested in joining the Richmond, Virginia Sports Backers Half Marathon Training team, go to www.sportsbackers.org for more information.

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V, SUMMER 2010

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