The culmination of a journey that began with weekly training runs in September and pushed participants to achieve both their physical and mental potentials will arrive on Patriots' Day this Monday, when the sixth annual incarnation of the President's Marathon Challenge (PMC) will participate in the 112th running of the Boston Marathon.
Taking part in the grueling 26.2-mile run between Hopkinton and downtown Boston will be a roughly 200-person squad of Tufts undergraduates, graduates, faculty, staff, parents, friends and alumni.
"It's almost incredible what they go through, how they get to the end, what the psychological highs and lows are," said Don Megerle, the PMC's director and coach. "They're absolutely wild."
The reasons for the runners' commitment to such a Herculean feat are numerous. Some members of the team have run the Boston Marathon or other marathons before and want to test themselves again. Others pride themselves in the charitable aspect of running for the PMC.
One alum wants to use her marathon effort as a way to honor her late father. Some join just to keep in shape, and others, like sophomore Alex Blackman, cite no reason in particular.
"To be honest, I really have no idea," said Blackman, who will participate in her first-ever marathon this Monday. "In September I just decided to start going to practices, and Don is very inspirational and has a lot of energy. So it's easy to get excited about running a marathon, and it's hard to turn down. It just evolved; I came out normally running four miles, now we're running six, and now we're running 10 and now you're ready for a marathon."
For senior TCU Vice President Bruni Hirsch, also a marathon rookie, joining the PMC offered the opportunity to return to the running lifestyle that she maintained in high school in a structured, team environment.
"I was on the cross country team in high school, and I got to Tufts and got really involved in other aspects of the university," she said. "Running went by the wayside other than running as a stress relief. And then I studied abroad last spring in Germany and had a lot more free time considering I wasn't involved in as many student activities. I joined the gym and was in there a lot of the time, so I decided to start running.
"I really enjoyed my lifestyle in Germany and wanted to think of a way to make sure that I would bring a piece of it back to Tufts, but I knew that unless I made it a commitment and built it into my schedule as an extracurricular, I probably wouldn't continue running," she continued. "So then I decided that it would make the most sense to join the PMC team, and not only would I be running - which is what I really enjoy doing because it's healthy and it makes me feel good - but because also it's running for a good cause."
Running aside, the PMC raises charitable dollars for the university's nutritional medical research, courtesy of a deal President Lawrence Bacow struck five years ago with John Hancock Financial Services, the marathon's primary sponsor. With 200 Boston Athletic Association (BAA)-sanctioned charity runners, Tufts fields the most runners of any university or college.
"They give us 200 charity numbers to distribute however we please, and the idea is to raise money for the Friedman School of Nutrition and Tufts' Personalized Performance Program," Megerle said. "Last year, they raised over $400,000. Nobody does what we do; this is special."
After enduring weekly early-morning training sessions over several months, including four special longer runs this semester, Blackman said she feels prepared - if maybe a little nervous - for the task ahead.
"I finished a 20-mile run two weeks ago with the team and that went pretty well since I got the time I was looking for," Blackman said. "It's hard sometimes to get up in the morning and really get yourself going when everyone else is still asleep at 6:30 or 7:30, but aside from that, it's been going pretty well.
"I'm very excited, but I'm also really, really nervous," she continued. "It's hard to visualize the end still. Doing 20 miles made it a little bit easier to imagine that, but it's still really intimidating for sure to imagine the end of the marathon."
With a mere four days separating the PMC team from the marathon itself, one might think that the members would be pushing themselves as hard as ever with respect to training for the long 26.2 miles that lie in their future. But Megerle encourages them instead to take things easy in the final days before the race.
"From Wednesday through the marathon, we encourage them not to run," said Megerle, who is in his fourth year as Tufts' PMC director. "Some will run, though, but I tell them to stay off their feet and rest their quads. If you run on tired legs, they stay tired. If they don't do that, then the fatigue masks what's inside them. They'll get through the marathon, but not nearly like they would if they rested."
Some PMC participants have battled injury and other obstacles during the training process, including stress fractures, shingles, knee problems and even heart attacks. While Tufts usually manages to field virtually all of its 200 runners, this year has been particularly difficult in terms of runners lost to ailments, possibly whittling the team's final tally down to about 190 runners. But the resilience of the PMC team members might yet overcome.
"We had a rash of injuries at the end," Megerle said. "We had probably 10 runners three weeks ago who I thought were down and out, and those 10 ran nine miles last Sunday. [Trainers] Nick Mitropoulos and Kim Mace brought them through training regimens, physical therapy, rest, muscle stimulation, massage, stretching, and all those runners ran nine miles last Sunday. We credit Nick and Kim for bringing these people from the depths of nowhere and resurrecting their training."
While each runner will have to rely on his or her own two legs once the marathon itself begins, the support the PMC participants have received - most notably from Megerle - has helped keep them mentally fueled and motivated both during training and for the final run on Patriots' Day.
"In September I started with four miles, and I got through it, but it wasn't really a piece of cake," Hirsch said. "At first, it was really daunting to think that by the end of training we'd be running 20 miles. But Don has always helped us raise our confidence and been very assuring, and sure enough the 20 miles came and went, and it's gone smoothly. I think that more than anything, he's a life coach, and he makes you think you can do things that you never thought could be possible."
"He's very realistic, but he's also very excited about people running it and wants people to run it," Blackman added. "So there's a good balance between him being very considerate of the realities of something this big and also making sure people finish and making sure people themselves are able to be happy about it."
For Megerle, his position as coach from September through the end of April is something he thrives on.
"It's in some ways indescribable," he said. "You spend the whole year with them, you see them in the morning when they leave at 5:00 to go to Boston on the yellow BAA bus that's driven out to Hopkinton, and then I see them coming through at mile nine; them coming through at mile nine is about as exhilarating for these runners as you can imagine.
"It blows you away," he continued. "I tell people, it's like they're running to meet me; I'm their oasis in their long 26.2 miles, and I think a lot of them will say that the most exciting is to see me at the finish. And these kids are transformed in ways that nothing else could do but running a marathon."
With so few days remaining, the time for physical training is over, but mental conditioning and preparation for the task ahead remains at the front of the PMC members' minds.
"At this point, I figure I've put in the work and now it's rest week," Hirsch said. "It's really not on my mind because over the last few months it's been a huge part of my week, getting up early and running, but now I'm starting to get back into the college routine of staying up late and waking up a little bit later. It hasn't really hit me that the marathon is just several days away. But it's exciting; I'm waiting for that day to finally be here."
"I try not to fire them up," Megerle added. "I'm not one of those guys who wants to get them too keyed up; I'm pretty calm but confident, and I assure them that we're going to get them through it."
