THIS GRANDMA ROCKS! / Caroline Fanelli
conquers a 9-year marathon detour
By BILL PENNINGTON
Caroline Fanelli got lost in Chicago, and found herself nearly a decade later in Duluth, Minnesota.
Along her route, there were tears of anguish, tears of anticipation, and tears of joy. It was a Tale of Two Cities, punctuated with the worst of times, and the best of times. The journey was of self-discovery, and undaunted determination. And, boy, this Amelia Island Runner has determination.
CHICAGO 1997
And Caroline Fanelli planned on owning a marathon finisher’s medal.
The streets swelled with 650,000 spectators, and Caroline felt confident. It had been 14 years in planning for this special day.
Back in 1983, then 29-year-old non-runner Caroline had been sitting on her couch in Iowa, TV clicker in hand.
"I was sitting on the sofa watching WTBS and they were filming the Peachtree Road Race,” she remembers. “I found myself glued to the TV watching this thing. I was thinking to myself, 'Hey, that would be a cool thing to do.' I told my neighbor that we should go down there and do that race; that would be neat."
The next day she pulled a pair of red "hand-me-down" Nikes off the shelf and began a running journey that would lead to the Chicago starting line, and culminate in 2006 near the Canadian border. It was what Oprah would describe as an “aha” moment in Caroline’s life.
She was hooked on running from the beginning. The adrenaline rush was oh, so addictive.
Ironically, the year after watching the Peachtree on TV, she moved to Atlanta, where she met her husband Joe Fanelli, an accomplished club runner himself. "The 1988 Peachtree was our first race together, and I remember she did quite well," Joe said. "We both enjoyed that race." They ran in many subsequent Peachtrees, one of America’s largest 10K races, with more than 50,000 entrants.
The Peachtree events were always exciting, but a voice inside Caroline’s head kept whispering 'marathon, marathon, marathon.' It was the late 80s, the marathon phe-
nomenon was catching people’s interest, and Caroline vowed to someday become a part of it.
"Actually, it's been a longtime dream of mine since I started running," Caroline said. "It just seemed like a marathon would be the ultimate."
Though always thinking about it, she didn’t act on it right way, instead pacifying the inner voice with jogs in the neighborhood, dotted with local 5K and 10K races. Eventually, the whisper became a rumble, then a shout, and she finally committed to the 1997 marathon.
The race plan was simple. Use a conservative first-timers’ training program, maintain a slow to moderate pace; Joe would meet her at Mile 21, and they would run together for the final 5.2 miles. Seemed simple enough.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t so systematic.
Off the track
"We were told at the beginning of the race to follow the bright orange cones. We did what we were told and followed the orange cones, but I think we ended up following some cones that were construction cones. We were way off course,” she explained. “We weren't even sure where we were until we stopped a homeless guy and asked him for directions."
Caroline, and some of the slower runners, had fallen victim to bandit cones and a quick whistle.
While most marathons close water stations, take down route markers, and release race officials at six to seven hours, the 1997 Chicago Marathon began closing down sooner. This left Caroline and her pack of competitors without proper markers.
"She was about an hour late to Mile 21, so I knew something was wrong," Joe said in recalling that dreadful day. He finally found his wife, but her marathon dream had become an orange cone nightmare. She had endured 19 miles on the course, another couple off-course, then back on the course. There was not a race official to be found, no time to recover, just a hurtful mess.
It was over.
No medal, no official time, no celebration – a tough day, and nothing to show for it.
"I looked at Joe and started to cry," Caroline said. "I said, 'I didn't finish, I didn't finish.’ It hurt. I couldn't believe I didn't finish."
It was a dark moment for Caroline, but sometimes our darkest times bring out our best.
DULUTH 2006
Completing the unfinished business began in earnest last winter when she signed up for the 30th annual Grandma's Marathon in Duluth. Grandma's has nothing to do with grey hair and home cooking. It's actually named for a Duluth tavern that started the event in 1976 with a couple of hundred dollars and about 100 competitors. Today it's one of the more popular marathons among elite runners because of its high prize money, normally low temperatures, and an opportunity to qualify for Boston.
"I had been thinking about doing another marathon for a few years," Caroline, a grandma herself and a registered nurse at Nassau's Baptist Medical Center, said. "I just wanted to make sure the time was right. I felt this year the time was right. I had trained for the Gate River Run, and figured I would just continue the training straight through to the marathon."
So Caroline, admittedly a methodical recreational runner, charted a training program with one goal in mind – finish. Erase that Chicago blemish. The time was not critical -- just finish, baby, was her motto.
She increased her weekly mileage from her Gate training, and set her sights on Duluth. She figured training in the Florida heat and humidity would give her an advantage in cooler northern Minnesota. Though prepared for the heat, she did not anticipate a nagging array of foot blisters that developed only a few weeks into her training.
It was tough to keep a consistent schedule. There would be a good day of running, then a couple of days to soak and medicate blisters. Instead of three-to-four long runs per week, she was limited to one.
“I don’t think I was ever able to get any more than 30 miles in any week,” she said. “I was probably training with the minimum amount of mileage to be ready for a marathon.”
But there was no turning back, putting it off for another event. Caroline and Joe had already confirmed airline, hotel, and vacation time. It had to be this race, even if the blister woes continued straight through to Duluth, which they did. Two days before the June 17 race, she sat on the side of her hotel bed soaking her feet in Epson salt – not exactly a precursor to a successful race.
However, a near miracle occurred on race day. She woke up and the blisters had subsided. Her feet had not felt this good in weeks. Maybe it was the magnitude of the moment, divine intervention, or the soothing Epson ingredients. Who cares…. it reignited her confidence.
With 26.2 miles staring her in the face, she looked over as the fog was lifting off Lake Superior on race morning, and actually felt calm. There wasn't a doubt in her mind, she would start and complete her “unfinished business.” Then her emotions bubbled to the surface.
‘So many people pulling for me’
Caroline's tears dried over the next 26.2 miles. Then the water works really started.
She crossed the finish line, had a medal draped around her neck, and a nine-year albatross lifted off her shoulders. This time there were no missed turns, no quick whistles, and no cursed orange cones. She was a marathon finisher -- one of 6,909 of the 9,800 who started the race.
"I actually did it. It was such a hodgepodge of emotions right after the race. I couldn't help myself -- I was crying at the end. It felt so great,” she said three days after the marathon’s completion. “My brother's girlfriend was jumping up and down during the final stretch, saying, ‘You did it, you did it!' I had been waiting nine years to do this. I was so focused on just finishing -- getting over that mat. I was just numb at the end. All I kept thinking was, just get over that last (finishing) mat."
She crossed Grandma’s welcome mat in 6:44:32. Content in finishing, but like many Amelia Island Runners, pledging to do better.
"With my foot bothering me during training, I probably didn't get to run enough miles. My time was okay through about nine miles, but I had to slow down some. I probably trained the minimum amount you can train and do a marathon without hurting yourself," she said. "I was lucky that I had Joe helping to get me through some of the those Saturday training runs. And, I know I wouldn’t have made it if Ed (Hardee) had not gone with me on (part of) my final 20-miler before the race.”
Yes, the training runs -- the ones in 80-plus Fernandina Beach temperatures, designed to give her an edge in cooler Duluth. Well, somebody forgot to inform the Canadian border city that it’s supposed to be 59.8 degrees in June. The temperature that day hovered near 80 degrees, about 30 more than optimum marathon conditions.
A long look at Lake Superior
“I knew we would get into a residential area at Mile 19, then I'd be okay. Joe met me at Mile 21 and ran the last five with me. Near the end I was running a little bit, then walking some. I was really tired at Mile 23. Then at Mile 25 it started to rain and that gave me a surge of energy."
That final surge exorcised old Chicago demons and culminated Caroline Fanelli's decade-long journey.
But the adventure continues. She plans to do another one.
"After the race, I said, ‘No way I'm going to do that again.' But now I'm already thinking about doing it again."
Caroline, I hear Chicago is delightful in the fall.
It was an October morning in 1997, and a wave of 16,000 people lined up to begin the 20th annual Chicago Marathon. Michael Jordan and the Bulls ruled the city, Jerry Seinfeld owned the airwaves, and Monica Lewinsky still owned her blue dress.
Caroline Fanelli with her finisher's medal from the 2006 Grandma's Marathon.
A misinterpretation led her and a few of her fellow runners to inexplicably veer off the marathon course around Mile 19. With slightly more than 10K remaining, the group found themselves alone and confused in an unsavory Chicago neighborhood. Something had gone horribly wrong.
The unsettling Chicago experience gave her more resolve. "It just left me feeling like I had some unfinished business," she said. "I still knew I would finish a marathon
-- it just wasn't that day."
"When they started playing the theme from Chariots of Fire, I just lost it. I felt tears running down my face," she said. "I knew I had so many people pulling for me back home; all the nurses, my book club, people from the church, our running club; and Joe, and my brother and his girlfriend cheering me on here. I just couldn't help myself -- it was real emotional."
"The temperature really didn't bother me that much," she said. “Training around here helped with that. The hardest part was Mile 16 to 19. We were running along the highway next to Lake Superior for the first 19 miles. Around Mile 16 I started thinking, ‘I've been on this road long enough. I've seen all I want to see of Lake Superior. It's beautiful and all, but I'm ready for a change of scenery.’