Senior Madeline Duffy never intended to run a marathon, let alone anything further than the Cellcom half-marathon she participated in 2007 in Green Bay.

“I loved it, but I thought it was so far,” she said. “I thought people were crazy for running that and anything more.”

Two years later, that all changed when Duffy traveled to race in her second marathon, the Boston Marathon.

Pre-race
Duffy’s running career began in high school, where she was a member of her high school track and cross-country teams and generally ran middle-distance, the most around six miles, she said.

“Nothing too serious,” she said.

After coming to UW-Eau Claire, Duffy said she scaled back from running (on teams) and focused on pursuing her education and other activities, running an average of five to six miles a day, five days a week.

In addition, Duffy started as a volunteer in January 2009 and now interns at the Chippewa Valley Free Clinic, 421 Graham Ave.

Last summer, Duffy worked in Door County, which took her away from her job at the clinic. Knowing that this would be her last year serving at the clinic, Duffy wanted to do something a little different.

“I knew I wanted a strong project to come back to,” she said.

Fundraising
Duffy’s goal was to start a wellness program at the clinic and it is still in its preliminary stages.

The project was based off the clinic’s lack of a preventative health aspect, which was evident through a patient-survey she had created and facilitated previously.

“To me, so much of being healthy is preventative and its proactive rather than reactive,” she said. “I wanted our patients to have the education and the resources and the tools to take their health into their own hands.”

Duffy said it can be done relatively cheaply with the right time, resources and volunteers and that she knew if she only raised a small amount, it could stretch quite far.

Jenny Regalia, clinic manager of CVFC, first met Duffy when she came into the clinic as a volunteer.

Regalia said Duffy has always been a strong person, but has really grown while being at the clinic and taking on leadership roles, including the wellness project.

“She’s really gotten us to think . about how the patients eat and exercise,” she said.

Also, despite her busy schedule, Regalia said Duffy has never forgotten about the clinic.

“She was always here for everything,” she added. “That was really special.”

When thinking about who Duffy is and her contributions to the community, Regalia said she’s not only courageous, but has strong convictions and is willing to work for them.

“Even though she’s not originally from Eau Claire, Eau Claire is really going to miss her,” she said. “She’s put in a lot of work and effort . it’s rare you’ll find a student of her age, with everything she has going on, willing to take on this work and this commitment.”

Duffy looked into options of how she could fundraise for this project along with running, which led her to her first marathon in September 2008, the Community First Fox Cities Marathon in Appleton. During the summer, she used free time to write a fundraising letter and personal solicitation. She also had to follow up with donation receipts and thank you letters.

“The fundraising . was almost as time consuming as preparing for the marathon itself,” she said.

When she began to train six weeks before the race in August, she had a base of eight to nine miles.

“I just went with it,” she said.

Duffy completed the marathon with a time of 3 hours, 37 minutes. Little did she know her time qualified her to run in the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest annual marathon, according to the its Web site.

The qualification for her age bracket, Duffy said, are 3 hours, 40 minutes.

Upon finishing, Duffy said everyone was screaming congratulations.

“It was incredible,” she said. “It was probably one of the best experiences of my entire life. It’s the largest mental challenge I know that I’ve ever went through.”

In addition, Duffy was able to raise roughly $1,100 dollars, which is allocated for the wellness project at CVFC.

Duffy said it was never a goal to reach the Boston Marathon, and never trained for it specifically with a watch or running mile splits. Instead, she said she wanted to just finish.

Running to Boston
A week after qualifying, Duffy decided to do the Boston, and signed up for it.

“That was like a no-going-back kind of thing,” she said.

Duffy credits a number of people as her support system, including her roommates, boyfriend and family, among others. One of Duffy’s roommates, senior Nora Beckstrand, described Duffy’s qualification as the experience of a lifetime.

“Most people, it takes them many marathons to even qualify for it, so the fact that she did it in her first one was . quite amazing,” she said. “I was just really excited for her.”

Duffy’s other roommate, senior Megan Fechter, said some days Duffy wouldn’t feel like she had time to run, but she and Beckstrand were able to help her past those days.

One memory Fechter has of the training is when Duffy would run up the campus hill and she would time her and cheer her on.

“She definitely had a key support system,” Fechter said.

In addition, Fechter and Beckstrand traveled to Boston, along with Duffy’s boyfriend, sister and sister’s fiancé.

After signing up for the Boston, Duffy scaled back for a month and went down to five to six miles. Starting in November, she started to work her way back up. One change to her running and training routine was the move indoors to a treadmill up until about two weeks before the race.

Being inside offered less-than-ideal conditions, including a moderated temperature and no wind.

Duffy used hills on the treadmill, occasionally lifted 10 to 15-pound weights and did core workouts such as pilates.

For the Boston, Duffy was more conscious of sugar in her diet and tried to eat healthier in the months before.

Besides intentional changes, Duffy said she was always hungry because of the amount of running that she did and the strain on her body. Even eating snacks before sleeping wasn’t enough.

“I would be so hungry in the middle of the night that at one point, I had a box of granola bars by my bed just because I could not get enough during the day at one point during the training,” she said.

When she moved back outside to train, she said it wasn’t quite the same.

“I was really sluggish,” she said. “I was terrified and I thought I was going to go out to Boston . and wasn’t going to perform as well as I would like.”

However, Duffy said she found a cure – adrenaline – once she was in Boston.

“It was the most phenomenal experience of my entire life,” she said.

Duffy said she was one of 25,000 runners who all understood the same things she was going through, including the struggles, dedication, hard work, sacrifice and commitment.

“Just being around those kind of people . is an absolute privilege,” she said.

Unlike her first marathon, Duffy was unable to do the same type of fundraising for the Boston Marathon because of her busy last semester at the university as a double major.

“I was stretched a little too thin,” she said. “If I would have done it, I would have wanted to have done it well. I feel that anything less would not have been doing justice to the cause.”

Another fear she faced was the mileage she ran before the race. The most she ran before was 22 miles at one time, on a treadmill.

“It’s not at all indicative of a race,” she said, adding that the day she did 22 miles, she knew she would be able to complete the Boston because she knew she could have ran 24 miles.

During the training, she scheduled in sleep and put her health first, similar to her wellness plans for the clinic.

“I’d like to think I practice what I preach.”