Former Brewer standout goes the distance in running relay

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During her days at Brewer High School, Abby Bouzan-Kaloustian was not a distance runner.

The only times she ran distance races were the 800 meters at Brewer’s annual test day, which caps off the Witches’ preseason.

After graduating from Bucknell (Pa.) University in 2004 with a degree in biology, the former pole vaulter and sprinter took up distance running.

“My boyfriend [former Bucknell runner Dan Weaver] was a distance runner, and when I graduated he was like ‘you need to find something else to do, you should start running,'” said Bouzan-Kaloustian.

That help paid off recently, as Bouzan-Kaloustian, an Orrington native who now lives in Chicago, participated last weekend in the longest-running relay race in the world, the Hood to Coast Relay in Oregon.

Bouzan-Kaloustian’s team, the Fleet Feet Barbies, finished 38th overall and fourth among women’s teams in 23 hours, 15 minutes and 22 seconds.

Fleet Feet is based in Chicago and specializes in different running apparel.

The 197-mile event is a challenge, starting at the summit of Mount Hood and finishing in the coastal town of Seaside at the Pacific Ocean.

One of Bouzan-Kaloustian’s friends encouraged her to join the team earlier this summer, and she jumped at the chance.

“One of my friends said, ‘you should join, you could be better than most of the girls, you could make the elite team if you really try,'” said Bouzan-Kaloustian, who does administrative work for a nonprofit technology corporation in the Windy City.

The 2000 graduate of Brewer, where she helped lead the Witches to the 1999 Class A state indoor title, ran legs six, 18 and 30 of the 35-leg race.

The last of Bouzan-Kaloustian’s three legs was the shortest, only 5.35 miles, but don’t let that fool you. It was all downhill, but after running 7.5 miles in her first leg and 12.15 more in her second – which was mostly uphill no less – it wasn’t easy, she admitted.

“It was pretty much all downhill except for maybe a quarter-mile, half-mile uphill, which was painful,” she said. “I was very tired and hurting.”

Bouzan-Kaloustian plans to run the Chicago Marathon this fall, which will mark her debut at that distance.

Participating in the Hood to Coast relay convinced Bouzan-Kaloustian she could do well in a marathon.

“Having done this I have more confidence that the marathon will go well,” she said.

The Chicago Marathon course will be vastly different than that of the terrain in Oregon.

“The first couple legs [have] very steep downhills and the altitude changes dramatically,” Bouzan-Kaloustian said. “You’ve kind of got to take it in stride.”

The Chicago Marathon will likely be easier, Bouzan-Kaloustian said, as a marathon is more methodical than a relay event in the sense that you’re running one separate 26.2-mile race as opposed to the aforementioned relay, where you could be running two races in less than 12 hours.

“Some people say this is more difficult than a marathon,” Bouzan-Kaloustian said. “You’re running your butt off the whole time as opposed to a marathon where it’s more controlled.”

Before the event, Bouzan-Kaloustian had a good feeling of what she was getting herself into, having watched Weaver, who graduated from Bucknell in 2003, participate in events such as the 3,000, 5,000 and steeplechase.

“I’ve seen [Weaver] hobble a couple times,” she said.

She didn’t get much sleep, waking up at 9 a.m. Pacific time Friday, running her first leg at 9:30 that night, her second at 4:30 the next morning and her third at 9 the same morning.

“In that whole time I got 45 minutes of sleep,” she said.

The race featured teams from 49 states and many countries, including some from Sweden and Italy who wanted a photograph with Bouzan-Kaloustian and her team as a keepsake of the event.

“They’re like oh, the Barbies, we want to take pictures with the Barbies,” said Bouzan-Kaloustian, who added that some of her teammates coined the Barbie name.

“It was definitely a joke, we did it as a joke,” she said of the nickname.

Will she do the grueling yet rewarding relay again?

“We had a great time, it was a lot of fun, I would definitely do it again,” she said.

Ryan McLaughlin can be reached at 1-800-310-8600 or bdnsports@bangordailynews.net.