The thought that growing old necessarily means giving up has never entered Nora Doyle’s mind.
Earlier this month, Doyle ran her second half-marathon to commemorate her triumph over breast cancer 20 years ago. She placed
690 out of 1,304 runners with a time of 2 hours, 20 minutes, 43 seconds.
Not bad for a 67-year-old, who prepped for the run by entering the annual Bare Buns race held in a nudist colony north of Spokane last summer.
“My daughters Mariza and Erica thought it would be a good mother-daughters bonding event,” Doyle said. “It was a clothing-optional
5-kilometer walk-and-run event and, yes, we were naked.”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” she added. “At first, it was a little weird, but since 85 percent of the runners and watchers were bare naked, the novelty soon faded.”
What didn’t fade was Doyle’s decision to run, not walk, the course.
“After it was over, I felt good, and decided to explore running something a little longer,” she said. So she made plans to enter the Whidbey Island Half-Marathon on April 11, a roughly 13-mile round trip jaunt from Oak Harbor to Penn Cove.
“I wanted to do something difficult, a way to celebrate being alive,” Doyle said. She had suffered through six months of intense pain and physical stress 20 years ago from the chemical treatments to arrest the disease.
“And here I am today,” she said with a big smile.
Doyle lives in Freeland and ferry commutes to her job as a computer programmer for the Snohomish County Public Utility District in Everett. Husband Rich —“My loving best friend for 26 years” — was supportive of her plans, she said.
“I don’t like running all that much, so he got me an Mp3 player,” Doyle said. “I discovered an old group called Electric Light Orchestra and found that the beat fits my stride perfectly.”
She joined the Island Athletic Club and began a taut training regimen, exercising with aerobic weights four to five times a week for six months.
She really started getting into high gear in January.
“Each week — rainy or clear — the runs got a little longer and I began to really push myself,” she said.
“On the morning of the race, I found myself in the middle of hundreds of people,” she said. “I started to cry in relief that all the hard work would soon pay off. But it was a happy moment; I knew I could do it.”
It’s really happening and I’m ready, she told herself.
The half-marathon began on Heller Street next to Wildcat Memorial Stadium, then skirted the Oak Harbor waterfront, followed along Saratoga Passage to Penn Cove and finished on the waterfront in Windjammer Park.
Doyle paced herself once the race got under way, heeding the advice of her daughter to go into her own world and not be concerned when others passed her along the course.
“It rained the day before and the day after, but the day itself was dry and cool; a little breezy, but good for running,” she said.
Though they didn’t join her for the race, Doyle’s husband and daughter showed up at the turnaround to provide moral support. “That was a truly nice surprise,” she recalled.
When she reached the top of the hill above the park, she could see hundreds of people waiting at the finish line to greet their friends and family.
“I had made it and still felt pretty good,” she said. “I’m thinking about doing it again next year, but either way I keep running a couple miles a week. I’m in the best physical shape I’ve been in for the last 20 years and doing this confirmed I’m a determined person!”
Jeff VanDerford can be reached at 221-5300 or jvanderford@southwhidbeyrecord.com.
