Dome Starts - And Finishes - Marathon

Last week's Boston Marathon had a local connection. Susan Dome, a 1997 Whitko High School graduate, ran the race and placed 6,562nd out of 17,813 runners. She was the 917th woman to cross the finish line as well.

After running cross country and track in middle school and high school at Whitko, Dome decided to take some time off when she started studying biology at Purdue University in West Lafayette.

"I took about a year off, and then last May I ran a mini-marathon in Indianapolis," said Dome. "I did OK there, so I decided that I might run a full marathon. I had always wanted to run a marathon.

"I had some friends who were running the Chicago Marathon and they asked me to run it with them, so I did."

However, Dome did not decide to run the Chicago Marathon until September. The race was in October, so she did not have much time to prepare.

"I started training in September, and the race was in October," said Dome. "I had a really quick turnaround."

That quick turnaround could be contributed to the amount of training she did to prepare.

"When I train, I take one long run per week," said Dome. "That long run is 13 to 21 miles. The rest of the week I run five to nine miles a day. Then I lift weights a couple times a week and throw a swim in there, too. I swim about a mile once a week."

All that training paid off when Dome ran the Chicago Marathon in October. She ran the Chicago Marathon in just over three hours and 36 minutes, a time good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon.

"After I qualified for Boston, I never thought twice about running it," said Dome. "I filled out the application and sent it in right away."

So Dome continued training for the big race. Between the Chicago Marathon in October and the Boston Marathon last week, Dome ran two other marathons. She ran one in Memphis, Tenn., in December and one in Georgia in February.

"By the time I ran in Boston, I was up to running about 40 to 45 miles a week," said Dome. Running a marathon gets a lot easier after the first one."

Last week Dome traveled to Boston to run one of the most widely recognized races in the world.

"I had never seen the course until two days before the race," said Dome. "Basically I went a couple days early and hung out before the race."

With 17,813 runners, Dome said the line of runners stretched from the starting point clear around nearly a full city block. The last runners crossed the starting line nearly 15 minutes after the actual race began.

"Where you start is based on your qualifying time," said Dome. "The elite runners are at the front, and it goes back from there. I started in alley 11, and it took me about five minutes before I crossed the start line.

"Then it was another 2-1/2 minutes before I could actually start running because there were so many people in the race. It was so crammed that all we could do was shuffle our feet for the first few minutes."

Although Dome crossed the start line more than five minutes after the first runners, her time of three hours, 29 minutes and 10 seconds is the actual time it took her to run the race.

All runners in the Boston Marathon have a timing chip put on their shoe with sensor mats at the start and finish lines so their finish time is accurate.

In all, Dome's experience in Boston is one she will never forget.

"It was incredible," said Dome. "I have never seen so many people show up to watch a race. The whole 26-mile course was lined with people cheering and supporting all the runners."

Now that Dome has finished the Boston Marathon, she has made another goal for herself.

"I would like to run a marathon in all 50 states," Dome said. "I would also like to compete in an Ironman Triathlon."