Kate Scott moved to Maine 11 years ago and lives in Waterville with her daughter, Julia (14), and son, Ben (12). She is an epidemiologist (and, thanks to the pandemic, can now say that without having to explain it!) and works from home as a Director of Informatics for the Medicaid division of a large health insurance company.
I quit running, focused on school, and didn’t run regularly for a long time. Life happened. A cross country move, graduate school, a career, a marriage, a baby, another move, another baby, another move (to Maine) and eventually a divorce. I ran the occasional 5K or beach run while on vacation, but rarely much else. Then, in 2018, while watching my daughter run at a junior high school track meet, I was reminded of how fun running can be. The excitement of a track meet woke up my inner 16 year old and inspired me to train for a marathon! A marathon had always been a goal of mine, but I never quite got past the initial planning stages. This time was different. I joined the Central Maine Striders, made a pact with my friend Cynthia to run the Twin Cities Marathon in October, printed out a marathon training plan and promptly set about planning my life around my weekly long run. It was a great summer and I enjoyed the journey of slowly adding more mileage, planning new running routes across bridges and over multiple town lines, and running the Quarry Road Summer Race Series. My fitness improved and running all those hills prepared me well for keeping up with my big sister during an allegedly non-competitive family reunion group run. (After which she ran another 10 miles – true story!) I also ran my first half marathon, the beautiful, but hilly, Triple Threat half marathon in Rockport, Massachusetts, which I finished in 1:53.
I continued to ease back into running with a few Striders pre-pandemic social runs and then, this summer the Quarry Road race series. I recruited my daughter’s friend, budding runner Beatrice Beale-Tate, to join me and we eventually met up with a few other Striders to run the staggered-start time trial races each week. Having a regular social event (and donuts!) to look forward to was a true bright spot in an otherwise uneventful summer. My race times were faster than two years ago, but I’ll admit it felt much harder! I was happy to complete the series without injury, and now also glad to cut back on the running a bit and take time to recover. I’m learning to listen to my aging body and while I may never run that marathon, I hope to continue to run as long as I am able.
Luckily, being part of the Central Maine Striders doesn’t require being able to run the farthest or the fastest. Recently, I’ve been participating in monthly Zoom meetings and helping to plan the Central Maine Striders first Fall Classic 10K on October 11th. We are putting the final touches on our race day plans and look forward to seeing many of you at the starting line!
Jerry Allanach
9/19/2020 04:34:53 pm
Hi Kate, Comments are closed.
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