Competing in the Boston Marathon is a dream for many runners, but even qualifying for the world-class event is extremely difficult.
Denare Beach’s Rhonda Werbicki not only qualified for the 2015 Boston Marathon, but also completed it in a time of four hours and 25 minutes.
“I compare it to having a baby,” said Werbicki, a mother of two. “It’s the worst pain you’ll go through, but at the end it’s amazing, that feeling. You just want to do it all over again.”
The April 20 event was Werbicki’s fifth marathon since she started running in 2000, but her first in Boston.
She ran her first marathon in 2009 and trained hard until May 2014, when she accomplished the goal she had set – qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
“Once I ran [my first marathon], I knew I wanted to do Boston,” she said.
Werbicki says the Boston competition had a different feel from the four other marathons she has completed.
“I had trained for so many years…that I was so tired,” she said. “Once I qualified it was like, ‘Ahh, I’m done’ and so I didn’t really start training [for Boston] until February of this year. I didn’t really train all that hard, I just enjoyed it.”
Experience
Werbicki says she wasn’t out for a personal best in the 42-km Boston Marathon, but for the experience.
“I wanted to take in the crowds. I stopped and shook hands with people, there was a Santa Claus on the route and the Hulk was there,” she laughed. “The experience was unbelievable. You’re amongst some of the best runners in the world.”
As many runners have commented, Werbicki enjoyed the camaraderie of the marathon.
“Everyone helps each other out,” she said. “There was a woman on the side of the road…throwing up…so I stopped and helped her for a little bit, and we walked until she got going again.”
Werbicki later received her own encouragement from other runners.
“It was the last 10 kilometres and I was really struggling,” she said, “And they came up to me and said, ‘You can do it’ and, ‘We’re almost there.’ Everyone helps everyone out. It was awesome.”
Since Boston’s marathon is held in April, Werbicki said most of her training was done inside, on a treadmill.
Once she left the start line, there were challenges she hadn’t prepared for.
“It was cold. It poured rain…and was probably -5 Celsius and was so windy,” Werbicki said. “The course was very challenging, it was very hilly and having trained on the treadmill, I wasn’t used to a lot of the hills.”
For her previous four marathons, Werbicki had done most of her training outside, mainly on the Denare Beach road.
“Oh, that Denare Beach road,” she laughed.
Qualify
Aside from those running for charities, all Boston Marathon runners must qualify for the world-famous race.
Werbicki’s qualifying time was set at three hours and 45 minutes, but with growing interest in the marathon, she actually had to finish at least 90 seconds faster than that.
She qualified on her first attempt with a time of three hours and 43 minuters while in Saskatoon last May.
“It was hard, but it was so worth it,” she said.
Werbicki says that growing up she had no interest in running or any sports, for that matter.
She was the yearbook editor in high school and hadn’t put any thought into running until 2000.
Since then, she has run 209 kilometres in official marathons, not to mention the countless hours, months and years of training.
She previously ran in the 2013 Chicago Marathon and has four more major marathons that she wants to complete.
“I’m not going to say never,” she said of returning to Boston, “but my goal now is that I want to run all the six major marathons – Chicago, Boston, New York, Tokyo, Berlin and London.”
Next up, however, is a break. Werbicki entered the Boston Marathon with a back and leg injury, the same leg injury that reared its head during the Chicago Marathon.
“Going in injured, I knew that it was going to be challenging,” she said. “I probably shouldn’t have run, but I just bore through it. Now I’m going to take some time off and let it heal up.”
Werbicki won’t be resting for long, however, as she and her 10-year-old son will be running in Saskatoon’s five-kilometre race next month.
She hopes to have her daughter join them, though she hasn’t made her final decision.
Werbicki hopes to pass her passion onto her children – not necessarily the passion for running, but for achieving.
“I would like them to see how hard I worked to get to my goal,” said Werbicki. “It was years in the making, but I finally did it. That’s what I’d like to pass on to them, that no dream is too big.”
The proud mother says she already sees that quality in her son, who shares a similar personality.
“Once he gets something into his head, he wants to do it,” she said.
