By Kellah Lavoie

Local councillor takes on marathon

Oct 18, 2010 | 6:39 AM

paNOW Staff

It was a gruelling race for Cheryl Ring, but she wouldn’t have traded the experience.

The Prince Albert city councillor spent Sunday morning in San Francisco, running the Nike Women’s Marathon.

“San Francisco is a very tough course we don’t do a lot of the really steep hills you see on TV, but there’s lots of rolling hills around the water edge and that’s basically where we went,” she said from her hotel room, where she was relaxing in after the race.

A stomach ache and heavy rain halfway through the 42.2 kilometre run didn’t stop her from finishing in about five hours – an hour longer than she hoped it would take.

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“But you know you can train and train and train and do everything that you’re supposed to but you just never know what is going to happen on race day,” she said.

“It took me about an hour longer that I expected, but you know I did it, I finished, I ran across the finish line.”

Marathons are nothing new for Ring. She even ran this one last year.

“The excitement and the rest of the participants just really, it’s just so exciting and so amazing,” she said add that camaraderie among the women is remarkable.
She said it doesn’t hurt that it’s for a good cause too. The race is a fundraiser for leukemia and lymphoma.

While she had a small crew with her last year, this time she had about 25 women from Saskatchewan head south with her for the race.

She plans to run it again next year – and not just for the Tiffany necklace that comes along with crossing the finish line.

“Other than being a Tiffany necklace you really earned something and wear it proudly,” she said.

Ring said after the race downtown San Francisco is a hub of runners. You can’t go anywhere with running into someone with a “finisher t-shirt” or a necklace on.

“That’s just an opener for oh how did you do and where are you from and really it’s just incredible the camaraderie down here, it’s just very exciting,” she said.

klavoie@rawlco.com