Going the distance, again

Rae Ann Darling Reed is driven by the silence of her surroundings. 

With every passing mile, the Rosedale Golf & Country Club resident lets her mind wander. Sometimes, such as during a recent training run, she considers ideas for her monthly column in Running Journal magazine. She also thinks about creating workouts for her Manatee High School cross-country and track teams.

What she doesn't do is clutter her run with music. Instead she uses the natural beauty of Manatee and Sarasota County’s parks, bridges and trails to guide her. 

“I love the hours of free thinking and fresh air out on the trails and roads,” Darling Reed said.

For the last 18 weeks, she has been a regular visitor to the Ringling Bridge, Nathan Benderson Park, Adventure Park, Robinson Preserve and Heritage Harbour, among other parks and neighborhoods, as she trained for the 2016 Boston Marathon. 

On April 18, with her husband, Philip Reed, cheering her from the street, Darling Reed completed her sixth Boston Marathon in a new personal best time of 3 hours, 30.34 minutes. She automatically qualified for the 2017 Boston Marathon.

“I wanted to have a better race than 2014,” Darling Reed said. “In 2014, it was emotional and exciting because it was the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. I got caught up in that and went out too fast and I really struggled to finish.” 

Darling Reed, who spends her days immersed in all aspects of running from checking out apparel to developing race plans to marketing races as the owner of Runner Girl, Inc., will take a little time off to recover from her most recent marathon before participating in a series of off-road adventure runs this summer around Picnic Island Park in Tampa. 

In addition, Darling Reed also will begin training her high school athletes for the upcoming cross-country season. Darling Reed often runs with the Hurricanes during their easy and long runs when she knows she’ll be able to keep up with the pace. 

“I tell them all the time “I trained you too well,”’ Darling Reed said. “You have to embrace the discomfort. They laugh at me, but to be really competitive, you have to push yourself and get past the fine line where you know it’s going to be OK.” 

This year’s Boston Marathon marked Darling Reed’s 25th marathon. She tries to run at least two or three marathons a year in addition to other local road races. Although having grown up in Monson, Mass., an hour outside of Boston, the Boston Marathon, which she watched every year to celebrate Patriot’s Day, holds a special place in her heart. 

“It’s like my hometown marathon,” Darling Reed said. “It feels like home.” 

It was a fitting finish for Darling Reed, who was unable to compete in last year’s race after partially tearing her hamstring in January 2015 while running a 5K. 

“Seeing her perseverance and dedication coming back from such a demoralizing injury was truly awe inspiring,” Reed said of his wife. “I derive much joy from watching her run. Seeing her do the thing that she is most passionate about in life and doing it so well always gives me a sense of great pride and frankly quite a thrill.” 

After the pain became too great for her to endure, Darling Reed was forced to stop running entirely for two-and-one-half months. 

During that time, Darling Reed picked up speed walking, completing a pair of 10K races, she would’ve otherwise ran, along the way. It was a difficult transition for the former Brown University distance runner, but one Darling Reed learned to embrace.

“She found pride in it and excelled,” Reed said. “She walked so fast at some of them that she was nearly going at some runners’ speeds.” 

Darling Reed gradually started running a half mile and continued to progress further each week. 

Without a qualifying time for this year’s Boston Marathon, Darling Reed entered the Last Chance BQ.2 Chicagoland Marathon. It was her one and only opportunity to qualify with registration for the Boston Marathon scheduled to open two days later. 

“I really wanted to try to make it happen,” Darling Reed said. “It was a marathon (Last Chance BQ.2 Chicagoland) that I had not raced, so it was a big unknown.” 

Darling Reed set a pace for each mile, a game she routinely plays to stay on track and fight the urge to keep pace with other racers. 

“I often get caught up in the competition and don’t run my own race,” Darling Reed said. “I made it a game or competition to hit my goal time for that one mile and tried to win each mile.” 

In the months leading up to the Boston Marathon, Darling Reed spent two days a week working on strength training, specifically core exercises, dead lifts and single leg squats and lunges. 

She also ran six days a week, running anywhere between 50 to 55 miles and 65 to 70 miles a week and focusing on more consistent mileage rather than high mileage. 

The method, known as Hanson’s Marathon Method, is designed to create cumulative fatigue rather than high mileage burnout. 

“The first time using it I was nervous because it’s not the traditional way of training, but it really works,” Darling Reed said. 

Darling Reed started running when she was 11 years old while trying to earn her fitness badge for Girl Scouts. She went on to run cross-country and track in middle school, high school and college before settling into marathon running seven months after graduating from Brown. 

She ran her first marathon in December 1995 in hopes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon, but ended up missing the cut by eight minutes. 

Two years later, Darling Reed qualified for her first Boston Marathon at the Disney Marathon. Since then, she’s ran America’s most prestigious road race six times with plans to run her seventh Boston Marathon next April. 

“I’ve learned I shouldn’t take this for granted, so I’m going to do it every year that I can,” Darling Reed said.