WELLINGTON NORTH – Alyssa Culp never thought she would be pounding the pavement in the Boston Marathon, let alone that the milestone event would mark the Wellington North resident’s seventh marathon.
On maternity leave with her first child from her job as a nurse at Wellington Terrace Long-Term Care Home, Culp began running a couple kilometres a week to improve her physical and mental well being.
By the fall of 2014, only a few months after Culp began running, she had completed her first half-marathon in Amherstburg, near the Detroit River.
With her running shoes barely broken in, Culp admits the 21.1km run was perhaps a little ambitious, but she’s a goal-driven person and needed something to work toward.
“I thought that would be a good way to push myself,” she told the Advertiser by phone recently.
As much as running is a physical challenge, it’s a mental one too.
“Your mind will give up before your body will,” Culp remarked.
She compares running to life: “You’ve got to just focus on where you’re at, take one step at a time.”
The goal in Amherstburg was to cross the finish line, rather than run against the clock.
“It went well, but I remember thinking at the time: ‘I would never be able to run further than that,’” she said.
She continued running a few times per week and self-coached using online research.
Throughout the next decade she ran several five and 10km races, and in 2015, she completed her first full marathon in four hours in Toronto.
“There’s something really amazing about feeling like something is impossible, and then being able to overcome that,” Culp said.
The pandemic halted runners in their collective tracks, but she kept putting rubber to the pavement on her own.
Following her second marathon, which she completed in 3.75 hours, Culp realized she could keep raising the bar.
“I realized I had taken 15 minutes off (compared to her first marathon) and maybe I could take another 15 minutes off and qualify,” she said of Boston.
In each of the next four marathons she ran, Culp focused on shaving time to meet the 3.5-hour qualification time for Boston. Running against the clock in the town of Georgina, around an hour drive north of Toronto, Culp qualified in September last year and the results were submitted to the Boston Athletic Association.
After receiving word 10 days later that she was heading to Boston in April, Culp began a six-week training regimen in preparation for the challenging course ahead.
“There’s a lot of hills in Boston,” Culp said. “So I adjusted my training plan to include a lot of hill training [while] still sticking with my strength training so I [didn’t] get injured, and lots of speed work to try and run a strong race.”
Culp runs between 48 and 64km each week in the off-season — and through four to five pairs of shoes in a year — but ramps the distance up to 100km per week when training.
“If I go out with a strong mindset and a positive outlook, then I can usually push myself,” she said.
Culp also mixes in healthy food, strength training, cycling and yoga.
The Boston route took Culp past iconic landmarks, including Fenway Park, through a 42-km route she described as an exhausting and emotional roller coaster.
“It’s just such an iconic race … I had heard so many times that it was magical, but I really didn’t understand that fully,” she said.
“There’s absolutely nothing like it.”
The city’s residents take to the streets, lining the course with barbecues, parties and blasting music.
Wellington North resident Alyssa Culp nears the finish line at the Boston Marathon. Submitted photo
“The atmosphere was unlike any other marathon I had ever run,” she said, explaining it was as though spectators’ energy carried her through the gruelling course.
Culp faced not only literal ups and downs, but emotional ones, too.
“There’s challenging parts where you have to talk yourself through it,” she said.
Toward the race’s end, runners tackle daunting hills.
“You have to remind yourself to just stay positive and trust your training,” she said.
“I just kept reminding myself: ‘you’ve trained for this.’”
Indeed every run before had led to that day in April when Culp approached the final stretch — her husband and in-laws among the spectators cheering around a kilometre-and-a-half from the finish line, giving her a much-needed boost.
She crossed the finish line three hours and 31 minutes after the start, accomplishing a goal she never believed possible.
Completing Boston was bitter-sweet, she said, leaving her wondering how to raise the bar again.
The answer: a 50km ultra-marathon this month in Niagara.
“I am confident that I can do it,” she said, adding she had been training since returning from Boston.
“I just want to get to that finish line,” she said.
