Life in quarantine can get pretty mundane, so Jessica and Anthony Sulewski decided to spice things up by running a marathon. However, they didn’t take the traditional approach to the 26-mile run.
On April 17, Jessica, 19 and a freshman in college, turned to Anthony, 17 and a Cornwall High School junior, and suggested running a marathon to escape boredom. The twist, however, was they would stay up for 26 hours straight and run one mile at the top of each hour.
“I wanted to challenge myself and do something that I normally wouldn’t have had time for,” said Jessica.
At 4 p.m., the pair set out to complete their first mile. From their Center St. home, they turned left onto Main St. and used GPS on their phones to measure a half mile up Hudson St. to St. Thomas of Canterbury Church. This became the course for the first and last mile. A majority of the runs were completed heading down Main St. to Chadeayne Circle and back.
Despite the snow and rain, the two ran side-by-side and managed to average about eight minutes per mile.
In between runs they would dry their clothes, grab something to eat, rehydrate, and just relax on the couch until an alarm indicated they had 10 minutes to prepare for the next mile.
Neither trained for the marathon beforehand, but they weren’t strangers to physical activity either. While in high school, Jessica ran one year of track as a sprinter. She mainly focused on cheerleading, dancing, and diving. Anthony, on the other hand, is a cross country and track runner.
At the 15-mile mark, Jessica had to call it quits because of the strain on her knees, but Anthony was determined to finish.
“I invested so much time waking up and not going to sleep and going out in the middle of the night, I just had to finish it,” he said.
It was also past the halfway mark that Anthony said he really started to feel the toll the miles were taking on his body. Drawing on his long-distance training, Anthony managed to finish the last nine miles averaging about six minutes a mile.
“I think it’s cool I did it,” Anthony said. “But I’m never going to do it again! It was a one-time thing.”
To document their run, the Sulewski siblings created poster boards where they noted the time it took to complete each mile, as well as what they did during each break. Some of the highlights included: “Wallow in self pity,” “exist,” and “eat food.”
