Extreme Life Makeover
Published 9:41 pm Thursday, November 6, 2008
A local woman recently found a way to cope with her oldest son graduating from high school and going off to college. And it has changed her life completely.
After the eldest of her four sons left for college in the fall of 2006, Alicia Harrison of Lyle decided she would get over her worries by finding a distraction. So she began to run.
“I started running from telephone pole to telephone pole, and walking every other one. Then I was running four telephone poles and walking one, and eventually I was running a mile,” she said.
Harrison ran competitively for the first time in her life when she signed up for a biathlon, where she ran four total miles and biked 22 more. She found herself reacting well to the running part and eventually worked her way up to train for marathons.
She hit disaster last year while training for the Chicago Marathon. Harrison suffered a stress fracture in her foot and missed eight of her 18 weeks of training. By the time she was able to run, she only had six weeks to prepare for her first ever marathon.
But the former cheerleader who never had much running experience didn’t back down. After all, she had already signed up for the marathon and she had raised $950 for the Alzheimer’s Assocation (her grandfather died of the disease) for the run.
“I might not have followed through if I didn’t connect it to a fundraiser,” Harrison said.
When the race day arrived things got even worse as temperatures reached near the 80s around the 8 a.m. start time. She had to scrap her original strategy and decided to walk 60 seconds of every hour. In the end she finished with a time of five hours.
“I wanted to do a better time, so I knew I wanted to do it again,” Harrison said.
As she vowed to run faster the next year in Chicago, Harrison ran the Country Music Marathon this past April in Nashville, Tenn. and she finished with a much faster time of four hours and 35 minutes.
When she ran the Chicago Marathon this past October, Harrison was running on all cylinders. Plus she got a special surprise from two of her sons — Addison, whose graduation inspired her, and Preston Bain.
The two joined her in the 17th mile and ran the final nine miles with their mother.
“They boys jumped in and it was remarkable. It helped me stay focused on not walking at all,” she said. “The last four miles were pretty tense as it got hotter, but having them with me helped me focus on not quitting.”
Harrison came through with her best finish yet in that race as she ran it in four hours and eight minutes. She hopes to do even better in the future as she would like to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
She would have to shave 18 minutes off that time and run each mile 40 seconds faster to meet that goal.
“It was the turning of 40 in August that made me think I needed to commit to something to stay healthy,” Harrison said. “My goal is to run the five major world marathons in the next 10 years.”
Besides Boston and Chicago, Harrison hopes to run in Berlin, London, and New York. Boston is the only marathon she has to qualify for, so she is attempting to run that one soon. She will run the Chicago Marathon in October with hopes of getting that qualifying time.
While training, Harrison has learned to use an ice pack and to stretch on long run days. She also discovered that a drink called Cytomax and acupuncture are very helpful in preventing soreness.
“I’ve been adamant about doing those things and I feel great. The combination of those few things is remarkable. I wasn’t sore at all,” Harrison said. “I’ve been telling everyone I can about Cytomax and acupuncture.”
Harrison plans on doing some shorter runs for the time being, before she kicks into her training for the next Chicago Marathon. She hopes to gain some speed over the winter.
“If you slow down, you can go a long time,” she said. “Now I’m trying to figure out how to speed up and go a long time. I’ll get it done faster so it shouldn’t be so bad.”
Harrison also has a piece of advice for anyone looking to get serious about running.
“Sign up for something,” she said. “I have to be signed up for the next event, whether small or big. If there isn’t a deadline in the future I won’t go out and hit the pavement because I don’t have to.”
While she had never run much in her life, Harrison’s dad ran every day, and she was very active in aerobics and other exercises.
Harrison was recently certified in personal training and hopes to use her marathon running to help teach others.