The work starts now

Running has been called an unforgiving sport, but not for Newport Beach’s Pat Kennedy.

Kennedy is on her third try in an attempt to run a marathon.

Saturday morning, she took her first step, attending the first Cal Coast Track Club training seminar for the 2008 Orange County Marathon.

Of the about 200 runners in attendance, Kennedy was one of about 25 who had never run a marathon. While the experienced marathon runners ran a two-mile time trial, Kennedy warmed up by running a mile — four laps around the Corona del Mar High track.

“I want to go to the full marathon,” she said of the fourth annual marathon, scheduled for Jan. 6, 2008. “And then, I’m going to cry.”

Kennedy, 53, started running in 2000, but eventually stopped. Then, three years ago, she started up again before being involved in an ATV accident in Utah.

“It was raining, and on a downhill I hit a tree,” she said. “It was my first ambulance ride, all of that.”

She broke her hand and tore up her shoulder, and was put on the pain killer Vicodin for about six months, Kennedy said.

“When you get off of it, then you go into the black hole of hell,” she said. “Then they have to put you on antidepressants, and they’re as hard to get off as anything else.”

Finally fully recovered, Kennedy said she saw an advertisement for the marathon training about two months ago and decided to show up.

Plenty of the marathon runners at Saturday’s first training session, which also featured a seminar from running legend Bill Rodgers, were more experienced than Kennedy. But Cal Coast’s Bill Sumner, also the race director for the OC Marathon, likes to see first-timers like her.

“There’s a lot of ambitious people out here and that’s great,” said Sumner, who is also the cross country and track coach at CdM High. “What we’ve done is try to make it and say, ‘Hey, this is a big challenge, but you can do this. Take the first step, and we’ll help you do the rest.’

“The new people, that’s what we’re looking for. New people are the best.”

Mary Carter of Costa Mesa also took the first step Saturday.

Carter, 39, used to run track in high school.

As her five children get older, she said she needed to do something for herself, and that meant picking the sport up again.

“You sit around and sit around, and too much time goes by and you don’t do anything about it,” Carter said. “I need to set an example for my kids, exercise and take care of myself. Money should have nothing to do with it. There’s too many people [who say], ‘I can’t afford a gym’ or ‘I can’t afford a trainer.’ Well, I’m here by myself and all it cost me was a pair of shoes. And it’s something we can do forever.”

Carter, who ran her first 5K race recently in Huntington Beach, is just looking to run the half-marathon.

“After that, we’ll see what happens,” she said.

But even sitting there hearing Kennedy’s story of coming back, Carter said she felt more motivated to do well in the OC Marathon.

“It’s one of the blessings of having [my kids] a little more grown up, is that I have that freedom of doing something,” she said. “This is what I’m choosing to do. It’s sort of simple, but it’s like a life-long decision to be healthy.

“We’re the only ones who can do it.”

Training will continue at Coroan del Mar High every Saturday until January.

Specific training for the half-marathon begins in October.

MATT SZABO may be reached at (714) 966-4614 or at [email protected].