Marathoner shows true grit in Boston test

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As you may have heard, they held a marathon down in Beantown on Monday, just like they have for the last 106 years.

If you’re anything like many of my friends, you listened to accounts of the race with half an ear, watched with half an eye, and dismissed the entire 16,000-runner throng as either half-baked or half-crazy.

I was down there Monday, and I’m here to tell you that marathoners are different from you and me in several ways, including the fact that most of them weigh (you guessed it) half as much as we do.

But lost in the debate on the relative sanity of someone who thinks running 26.2 miles is a fun way to fill a day off from work is this:

These people are special. … though they probably won’t tell you so. It’s important that you realize that.

Meet Rene Collins of Brewer. She gave up a nasty pack-a-day cigarette habit 21 years ago and decided to change her life.

She hit the roads on Washington’s birthday back in 1981 and hasn’t stopped training since.

She’s a grandmother and a mother and a nurse and a counselor. And she’s a marathoner.

On Monday, Collins made her annual trek from Hopkinton to Boston, and didn’t fare too well.

For the past year, she’d been trying to figure out a way to make her 60-year-old body run a qualifying time that 60-year-old female bodies can rarely achieve.

Think that’s an exaggeration? Look at Monday’s results. Out of 14,572 finishers, how many do you think were women aged 60-69?

Try 29. And only eight of them ran faster than the “official” BAA qualifying time, 4 hours and 10 minutes, on Monday.

Collins knew the qualifying standard was tough. She pointed that out when she applied for entry based on her age-group finishes in two major races.

So there she was Monday, out on the roads. Again. From Hopkinton to Ashland to Framingham and Natick … Wellesley, Newton, Brookline. … all the way to Boston.

And she got there. Not fast enough for her. Not fast enough for the BAA. But she got there.

In doing that, she proved, again, that there’s something different about marathoners.

It’s not all about body fat, you see. It’s not about finding pleasure in pain. It’s not about any of that.

It’s about pushing yourself. And finding out that your body can do things that sound nearly impossible.

Rene Collins had a rough day Monday.

And somewhere out in Wellesley, things went really bad.

Collins tripped and fell hard on her right side. She knew her face was bruised, and that her glasses had punctured the skin. But she didn’t know the worst of it.

“It is Boston,” she said in a Tuesday morning e-mail dispatch that explained the day’s events. “I could not stop.”

She didn’t.

For 13 more miles, she trudged. And for 13 more miles, she realized something: The fans lining the course aren’t very observant.

“One thing I know for sure: When the crowd cries out ‘Lookin’ good,’ I know they are not looking,” she wrote.

But Collins got to the finish line Monday.

It took her five hours. Then she went to the hospital and spent another five hours as doctors treated her. Know what they found out?

Rene Collins had run the final 13 miles with a fractured elbow.

Marathoners are different than you and me, you see. They’re tougher. And they’re focused.

Doubt it? Listen to what Collins said Thursday.

“The coolest thing in the world is that my doctor says I can run,” she said. “I don’t feel like it yet, but even now, I can run.”

And she will. Believe that.

John Holyoke can be reached at 990-8214, 1-800-310-8600 or by e-mail at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net