It is a warm morning in the middle of July, and Betsey Powers-Sinclair is nervous. Standing in front of the Gantcher Center with a group of middle-aged men and women clad in various athletic gear, she prepares for a task that seems impossible: Run a mile.
This Monday, she will run 26.2.
Powers-Sinclair, 42, is one of 12 previously sedentary runners being featured in a PBS NOVA documentary, tentatively titled "Marathon," that follows first-time marathoners as they train with the Tufts President's Marathon Challege (PMC) team to run the Boston Marathon -- from scratch.
The group began training with the PMC in December, and NOVA producers have been documenting the group's training and progress since July.
While the NOVA runners are not the only older members of the team - President Lawrence Bacow, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone and several parents and alumni will be running as well - they may have had faced some of the greatest challenges in getting to the starting line.
"This group ... had the notion [to] collect a group of sedentary people, non-runners, non-athletes, [who] had never run a marathon, had never even envisioned it ... [then] train them, administrate them, test them, from July until now, and see how they would do," PMC Director Don Megerle said. "All 12 who have been training with us will be at the starting line, and all 12 should finish."
For Powers-Sinclair, the journey has been particularly difficult. She had been gaining weight steadily for the past three years - until July. Since she began her training, Powers-Sinclair has lost 48 pounds.
"It's hard to believe," Powers-Sinclair said, wiping the coat of sweat from her brow after finishing her run on a cool, windy morning. "I really feel like I'm in 'The Truman Show' - that somehow I've lied to everybody, and they're going to show and realize that I'm not even going to be here. It's really a surreal experience. I've never, ever ran before this."
When 40-year-old NOVA runner Xenia Johnson began her training, a marathon seemed to be an insurmountable goal.
"I wasn't a runner, actually I wasn't doing anything - just sitting around a lot," Johnson said. "I, in med school, used to run maybe once or twice a week, maybe a mile or two, but I graduated med school in 1995. So 10 years or so had gone by, without doing anything. I wasn't running, hadn't run."
Since then, Johnson said, the NOVA team has been meeting once a week and training under close guidance from Megerle and experts from the Freidman School of Nutrition.
But it hasn't been easy.
"There's been points in the run, all the way along ... At some point in mile two or whatever, I would be like, 'I can't do this any more,'" Johnson said.
According to her, it's all about positive thinking.
"Let's say we ran 10 miles one day, and then a couple weeks later we're doing 14 miles. I'd think to myself, 'Okay, I can do 14. I've done 10, I can do 14.'"
For Powers-Sinclair, weight issues and self-doubt made the process particularly difficult.
"Unfortunately for me, I was the most overweight, so I think there were a lot of concerns about that, kind of health and safety," she said, recounting chronic, throbbing shin splints she had during her early training. "I would say in 40-odd weeks, my best run was when we ran 14 miles, and that run was great. Other than that, they're hard. They're all hard."
With the race looming in just days, Powers-Sinclair is nostalgic and emotional about having come so far.
"The people are phenomenal, and you really can't even imagine what a close-knit group we've become," she said, her voice wavering. "We talk during the week; we e-mail during the week; we've gone to Puerto Rico together. Our lives would never have crossed paths otherwise."
Megerle, who has coached the team for three years, said the marathon has a way of transforming people.
"If you saw a picture of Betsey between July and now, you'd look at it and think, 'My God, it's like another person,'" he said. "And in some ways, they are different people now - they've done things they've never imagined, [they have gained] the confidence, the self-esteem."
"They get through this thing," he added, "and they can do anything they want."
For Johnson, the training has allowed her to finally reach a personal goal she has had for years: to be a runner.
"I used to sort of look at people from my car, running along the road, and say to myself 'Oh I wish I could do that, I wish I could do that' and thinking somehow that I didn't have what it took to be a runner or run," Johnson said. "But the training program and the approaching marathon let me know that it was all sort of deceptive in a way to think that there was something magical about being out there."
"It's not being out there that's magical, it's sort of getting past what's inside that's magical," Johnson added.
For both Powers-Sinclair and Johnson, crossing the finish line on Monday would be a meaningful accomplishment - a climax to months of hard work. Megerle has seen hundreds of Tufts runners cross the finish line under his coaching, but said it never gets old.
"It's been exhilarating; it's been gratifying, and exciting," Megerle said. "The real payoff is on Monday, when you're with them at the start; you see them at mile nine, and then you see them cross the finish line ... It's beyond exciting to see the expression, the embrace, the whole sense of accomplishment at the end."
Johnson said that, no matter what happens, the experience has been worth it.
"It's meant more to me than just a physical endurance test or a footrace," she said. "It's more about the personal triumph, and a promise I've made to myself that I've been able to keep."
Powers-Sinclair said she has been changed deeply as well. As hard as it is, running is addictive - and she doesn't plan to stop after the marathon.
"It's funny, I don't really think of myself as a runner, but I've already signed up to do the Run to Remember, which is recognizing falling law enforcement officials, and some of us have talked about [whether] we would run in New York or Chicago" she said. "So while my first thought would be 'Oh no, I'm not going to run again,' the other part of me says, realistically, I've already signed up."
Megerle, glowing with pride, said he has never doubted any of his runners. He recalled one of the initial conversations he had with one of the NOVA producers, well before training had started.
"We were both talking about it, and he said, 'How many of these runners that you're going to train with NOVA will actually finish the run?'" Megerle said. "I said 'All of them.' He said 'All of them? You haven't even met them yet.' I said 'I don't have to. I know they're all going to start, they're all going to train, they're all going to finish it.'"
In spite of Megerle's confidence, Monday's race won't be without obstacles - weather reports forecast cold, wet and windy weather. But Johnson and Powers-Sinclair aren't worried. If there's one thing they've learned, it's that overcoming challenges is the essence of running.
"Getting past those points where I feel like I want to stop ... those have been the hardest places," Johnson said. "I always thought those were triggers or signals that I should be stopping, but now I know that those are points where I should push harder."
"I'm excited to get to the start," she added. "And even more excited to get to the finish."
