It’s almost 3 p.m. on Thursday and 81-year-old Carolyn Mitchell breaks at an aid station in the back of Mendenhall River Community School. She and her daughter, Connie Deverill, 49, have just three more miles to finish a marathon hosted by Mainly Marathons.
“We’re still doing OK,” Mitchell said to her other adult children, Eric and Chet DeFonso, as they waited underneath a covered bike rack. “We’re still doing our walk-run thing.”
The marathon course consisted of 16, 1.64-mile out-and-backs on the roads and parking lots surrounding the elementary school. Mitchell and Deverill had been on the move since 7 a.m. and most of the 30-odd other marathoners were through the finish line. Mitchell’s spouse Kent, 84, Eric, 50, Chet, 55, and third son Dan, 58, weren’t going anywhere until she finished all 26.2 miles — after all, it’s the whole reason they were in Juneau. With the completion of those three miles (two out-and-backs), Mitchell will have run a marathon in all 50 states — three different times. It will be her 175th marathon since running in her first one in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1990, at the tender age of 54.
“My calves are screaming, my legs are screaming,” Mitchell concedes before setting out again toward Mendenhall Loop Road.
Mitchell joined a running club in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1989. At first, she didn’t have any intentions of running a marathon. Mitchell joined the club, she said, after getting inspired by running races on TV.
“I thought, ‘Well, that looks really neat, that looks really neat, I would like to do something,’” Mitchell said. “But I was 53 years old. I thought, ‘Oh, I’m too old, I waited too long.’”
Mitchell decided to join the club anyway, which launched her marathon career. She met Kent through the club, and the two married 19 years ago.
“The running community is quite supportive — and close,” Mitchell said. “Because we all know what it’s like, what it takes to finish a marathon.”
The couple sought out marathons outside the United States and would go on to run on all seven continents (yes, even, Antarctica). Kent stopped running marathons eight years ago after two back surgeries and an open-heart surgery — but Mitchell kept on at it. She completed her second 50-state marathon circuit in Kona, Hawaii, in 2012.
“There’s usually nobody else in her age group,” Kent said. “Very seldom you find somebody this age running marathons. It’s seldom. So to have this longevity is rare. I’d still be running but my body broke down.”
Kent isn’t the only one Mitchell’s inspired through her insatiable marathon running. Eric, a massage therapist from Colorado, said.
“There’s a part of me that’s actually a little relieved because I know it’s a lot of work for her to do all this but I’m amazed that she’s done as much as she has,” Eric said. “I remember when she ran her first marathon 30-some years ago and I didn’t know it would go on, that she’d still be doing it even today. It’s a lot of inspiration, though. The more I think about it, the more inspired I get about how much she’s done.”
Daniel Rueckert, 32, owns Mainly Marathons with his brother. It’s the first time they’ve held a marathon series in Alaska. By hosting marathons in as many as 11 different states, the marathons tend to attract people like Mitchell, who are trying to knock out marathons in different states as quickly as possible. Thursday’s marathon was the third of four Mainly Marathons put on in Juneau leading up to the official Juneau Marathon on Saturday.
“If you go to one race (on its own), it takes the time to travel there and travel back and then the cost that goes with that,” Rueckert said. “Where with us, you can just go for a whole week and a half and knock out 11 states instead of paying for each one separately.”
Mitchell and Deverill return to the aid station again. It’s 3:27 p.m. When they set out again for one final leg, they are joined by Dan, and will return to the finish line exactly 37 minutes later. Rueckert jots down Mitchell’s time, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds, before packing up the aid station.
It may be Mitchell’s final marathon, it may not. She may tag along on her friend’s 100th marathon. She said her body’s been nice enough to let her do 175, and she can’t ask it for much more.
“I don’t know how much longer it’s going to let me continue to do this,” Mitchell said. “But it has been kind and it’s been a wonderful journey and I’ve loved every minute of it.”
• Contact sports reporter Nolin Ainsworth at 523-2272 or nainsworth@juneauempire.com. Follow Empire Sports on Twitter at @akempiresports.
Carolyn Mitchell runs with her daughter, Connie Deverill, in a marathon coordinated by Mainly Marathons along Mendenhall Loop Road on Thursday, July 26, 2018. For Mitchell, 81, it was her 175th marathon. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)
