PRINT ADS

An ancient Chinese proverb says a journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step. The same goes for a journey of 26.2 miles, and for Allison Jensen, most likely the youngest marathon runner in town, that step was deciding to go out for cross country at Onalaska Middle School last year.

Jensen didn’t know it at the time that that step would lead to some serious long-distance running. The coach told the new cross-country recruits last spring that over the summer they should run their age multiplied by 10. For Jensen, that was 130 miles, a daunting distance, especially after she went out on her first run, which was just one mile.

“I was sucking wind,” she said.

By the end of the summer, she was comfortable doing three-mile runs, though. “Then I realized that I really enjoyed running,” she said.

Randi and Teri Serres, the adult twin daughters of a neighbor, played a big part in getting Jensen to take the next step. They encouraged her to run with them in the Turkey Trot, a 5K (a little over 3 miles) race held around Thanksgiving every year.

Jensen ran with them and finished with “a really good time” and had a really good time, too. At their encouragement, over the next few months they all ran in five-mile races.

“After that,” Jensen said, “they were like, ‘Do you want to run a marathon?’”

The Serres sisters were experienced runners and checked with a couple doctors in the La Crosse Running Club to see what concerns there might be for an eighth-grader running a marathon. Turns out that the concerns were pretty much the same as anybody planning to run a marathon: proper training and nutrition. Jensen’s parents, Kathleen and Larry, were reassured and gave their daughter the green light to get to work on training.

Jensen and the Serres sisters ran together three or four days a week, gradually increasing their mileage as they drew closer to the May 18 marathon in Green Bay. “Each time we ran a new distance it was a really cool feeling,” Jensen said.

They did two 20-mile runs in the final run-up to the marathon, and Jensen felt well prepared to go the distance physically.

The morning of the marathon, people asked her if she was nervous. She wasn’t, but then, after a few people asked her about her nerves, it dawned on her. “‘Oh my goodness,’ ” she said to herself,

“ ‘I’m running a marathon today.’ I said a quick prayer because I knew I couldn’t do it without God’s help.”

She also had help from her running partners and family, with somebody from her family cheering her on every mile. That support was crucial in helping her keep going.

Naturally, Jensen had physical issues during the marathon, battling fatigue, dehydration and “ginormous” blisters, which popped at about mile 17. The hard part, she said, was maintaining the mental toughness to ignore the part of her mind telling her that she could just stop running.

A lot of marathon runners hit their “wall” at about mile 20, where it becomes a lot harder to keep going. The Green Bay marathon set up a “wall party” at that point, with a high concentration of rowdy fans and high-volume, high-intensity music designed to get runners to kick up their heels.

Jensen didn’t really hit her wall until a few miles later, at which point she decided she had better not stop at any more water stops, fearing she wouldn’t be able to start running again.

Even with a stop to get a picture in front of Brett Favre’s house, Jensen finished the marathon in 4:18:30. That was 15 minutes better than the Serres sisters’ previous best time for a marathon. She had the fastest time of the three entries in the 14 and younger division, earning herself a beautiful medal.

“It was the most amazing thing to see her finish,” her mother said. “I started crying about mile 10. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of.”

There is a physical price to be paid for running a marathon, and Jensen paid a higher price than most. She could barely get out of bed for three days after the race and even two weeks after the event was still a bit stiff.

“It was worth it, though,” she said.

For her mother, the really astounding thing is her daughter trained for a marathon while getting straight A’s in school, playing flute in the school band, running cross-country and track at school, creating a National History Day project that qualified for state competition, volunteering at her church (Bethany Evangelical Free Church) on Wednesday nights and taking part in two weekly Bible study sessions.

“You can make time for what you want to do,” Jensen said.

Now that she has completed her first marathon, Jensen has her eyes on the big prize: Boston. She’d like to qualify for the Boston Marathon by the time she’s 18, and that means running 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes or less.

The big challenge for Jensen doing more marathons is she can’t do it by herself. She’s too young to be going out on long runs on her own. But she’s confident she will find a way, and she has the full backing of her parents.

“God gave her this body to do this and she’s using it,” her mother said.

Contact Randy Erickson at randy.erickson@lee.net or (608) 786-6812.