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On Monday, April 19, 2010 before thousands of cheering race fans – and four days before her 50th birthday – Valerie Bertinelli completed the 114th Boston Marathon. It was her first-ever attempt at the daunting 26.2-mile distance, and Valerie and her personal trainer Christopher Ross Lane finished the race in a respectable 5 hours, 14 minutes.
“I am so overwhelmed, and so excited,” she said. “I can’t believe it. I’m just blissful. It was so hard, but so much fun.”
“I am just so proud of her,” Christopher said. “She was steady and strong throughout the race.”
Starting in the town of Hopkinton and following a hilly route to the heart of Beantown, the Boston Marathon is known for its raucous crowds. Certain neighborhoods have their own rituals and customs, with young women from Wellesley College offering kisses of encouragement at the half-way point.
“That was a lot of fun,” Valerie said. “There were girls with signs saying, ‘Kiss me, I’m a freshman! Kiss me, I’m a senior! I majored in kissing.’ They really got into it and really kept us going.”
Going was one big worry for Valerie – going to the bathroom, that is.
“I was really afraid of the port-a-potties – these are runners after all, and we’re all nervous and … well, you get the idea,” she recalled. “At Mile 7, we saw a Wendy’s and a runner was coming out, so I told Christopher, I’m going! I didn’t have to wait in line, What a relief.”
During the marathon, many participants will write their names in block letters on the fronts of their shirts to elicit extra encouragement from the crowds. The fastest television actress / Jenny Craig spokeswoman in her age group received plenty of cheers.
“She was listening to her iPod, and I’d tug on her sleeve and point to different fans,” Christopher said. “A lot of people recognized her and they were very encouraging.”
On top of finishing the race, Valerie and Christopher raised $22,466 for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute – another amazing accomplishment. A total of 500 runners participated in the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge, raising more than $3 million for cancer research. During the most challenging parts of the race, she drew on that motivation to push onward.
As they had planned in their training, Valerie and Christopher maintained a steady pace to conserve energy for the grueling Heartbreak Hill climb at Mile 20. Her longest run to that point had been a 19.2-mile training run just two weeks earlier.
“Heartbreak Hill wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be,” Valerie recalled. “It was the hills in Newton that killed us. Up and down and up and down.”
Ringing her cowbells, Christopher’s sister Karin joined the duo for the jog up Heartbreak Hill.
“I couldn’t believe it when we saw her,” Christopher said. “It was just what we needed.”
Turning down Boylston Street for the final stretch of their five-hour-plus ordeal, Valerie turned off her earphones to soak in the crowds that packed the sides of the street and hung out windows overhead.
“I was just so emotional,” Valerie said. Her fiancé Tom was at the finish line with a huge bouquet of tulips – her favorite – and her brother Patrick had smuggled in a nip of Champagne in a sports-drink bottle.
“I am so in awe of the fact that I just ran the Boston Marathon,” she said. “I can’t believe it.” |
Comments
You have one more memento to look back at in those moments of self-doubt. You can do ANYthing you set your mind on. Congratulations !
~Karnel
Congratulations I'm sure glad everything is working out for you. Your amazing. My wife and I are inspired by you and your family coinsidentally, she has always been your splitting image throught the years. She is Italian, but also Irish. We are all about the same age. We were married about the same time, had a son about the same time. We were rock'in in the 80's. All our friends refered us to Eddie and Valerie...except were not celebs, darn. I also have a sister Valerie. My wife Linda is from Boston her last name is Voltero...so we are "V" people as well. I have run 3 marathons in the past, although not lately ha...always wished to run the Boston marathon. We own a little Italian Deli in San Diego called "Voltero's Deli" in Mission Beach.
I always wanted to contact you, because I though the similarities were strangly coinsidental. Now you have your own web site! Good luck to you and yours.
Ciao!
Eddie and Linda B.
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