Even though the 5:00am starting time for tomorrow’s Tupelo Marathon & 14.2 Miler will require her to rise a little earlier than normal, Corinth’s Cynthia Harrell will be thankful for her short commute to the starting line: Her last two marathon entries required trips of 6,600 and 4,400 miles! She is one of only a handful of runners in the Southeast to have finished all six of the World Marathon Majors, a feat she completed this past spring at Tokyo and London.

Cynthia Harrell began her late blooming long distance running career seven years ago at a small local race: “We were just back from our five-and-a-half-month hike of the 2,184-mile Appalachian Trail; and hosting some new friends we met during our last 500 miles on the AT. We told our out-of-town guests, ‘If you wanted to savor the true flavor of Corinth, the Rotary 5k race would be a good place to start!’ So, at the last minute, we all signed up and ran.”

Walking 13+ miles a day from Georgia to Maine, plus losing 33 pounds along the way, had gotten Cynthia in really good shape, but not in condition to run any great distance. “My pace that day was more of a speed walk, but I somehow managed to finish third in my age group. That Rotary race got me really excited about running. Many AT hikers start putting lost weight back on as soon as they leave the trail. I decided running might be my way to keep that from happening.” Her plan seems to have paid off, as today at 5’ 7”, Cynthia weighs 136, within a pound or two of her trail weight.

This year Cynthia will be using the Tupelo 14.2-mile race as a tune-up for the upcoming Marine Corps Marathon this October, since taking a few months off, after almost two years of continuous training preparing for the six World Majors [Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York, Tokyo, and London]. She says the idea of taking on this challenge was slow to develop, but became a big-time goal for her in the summer of 2017.

“When I started running, my hope was just to race ten kilometers (6.2 miles), and maybe sometime much later, run a half marathon. However, with the encouragement of Corinth running legend Kenneth Williams, my husband Woody decided to once again try to qualify for the Boston Marathon, a race he had last run before we met, way back in 1975. Pretty quickly I found myself out on Highway 350, training with Kenneth’s Saturday morning “Lunatic Fringe” running group. We joke about those hills being the ‘Alps of Mississippi,’ but tackling that route weekly can quickly transform you into a serious runner.”

“By the following March, Woody was ready to attempt a ‘BQ’ (Boston Qualifier) at Virginia Beach, and I tagged along to try my first 13.1-mile race on the same day. It was a cold and windy morning, and I started out way too fast, which I paid for in the last few miles; but that race gave me such a feeling of accomplishment. If it hadn’t already, I guess you could say the running bug bit me that day. Afterwards, I told everyone I didn’t have any interest in actually running the Boston Marathon, but I did want to run a marathon, and do it in a Boston-qualifying time.”

Cynthia ran her first marathon in Greenville MS, where half of the race is on either side of the famous Mississippi River bridge. She placed in her age group, but missed her BQ goal by two minutes. Six months later, after a full summer of training in Mississippi’s heat and humidity, Cynthia traveled to Albany, New York, and, with a scenic course and ideal weather, improved her marathon time by ten minutes, a “Boston Qualifier” with time to spare!

Following a trip to Boston to watch Kenneth Williams and husband Woody run in 2014, Cynthia changed her mind about running in that race: “Boston is so special. Only about one percent of marathoners are fast enough to qualify. Being fortunate enough to be in that group, I decided I had to take advantage of the opportunity.” While waiting for the 2016 race, Cynthia was set back by her only serious running injury. “I discovered my form as a ‘heel striker’ was putting undue pressure on my lower back. Fortunately, I found a running specialist on-line who was able to use slow motion video to break down my form, and step by step convert me to running on the balls of my feet. Since then I’ve been injury free.”  

In 2017, Cynthia began to hear more and more about the World Marathon Majors, a series of six of the world’s largest and most renowned marathons, sponsored by Abbott, an American health care company. The series began in 2006, but interest in the event really escalated in 2013, when the Tokyo Marathon was added to the list. After that, a prestigious “Six Star” medal was awarded to runners completing all six of the races. [To date, Kenneth Williams is the only other Corinth runner to complete as many as five of the WMM’s, a feat he completed well before the Six Star award became a “thing.”]

Although these World Major races all have from 30,000 to 50,000+ participants, gaining entry to them is not easy. Chicago and New York, like Boston, have qualifying standards based on a runner’s age and marathon time, which Cynthia easily met; but Tokyo and London have relatively few spots allocated for international runners. One must defy odds of over twenty to one though a lottery system, or raise money for an affiliated charity, to be able to take part. After less than two years on this worldwide journey, Cynthia feels fortunate to have been able to make her way to all six starting lines.

 As for running the races themselves, Cynthia found each presented its own challenges and opportunities: “The World Majors are so big and crowded, it can be difficult to find running room. At Tokyo, for example, it took me almost eleven and a half minutes after the gun to reach the starting line. But all six races have been amazing experiences. All the courses have been designed to pass famous landmarks along the way. What a great way to tour these cities! Three highlights have been the view of the New York skyline while running over the Verrazano Bridge, and racing to the finish line through Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate and past London’s Buckingham Palace.”

Cynthia noted Tokyo can be the most stressful race in the series: “The Japanese are strict about re-opening the course to autos at pre-set times, and if you fail to meet these cutoffs at various check points along the way, you are disqualified from the race and put on a ‘sweeper’ bus. You have to stay ahead of the balloon-flying pacers to stay out of trouble. Over two hundred runners, some held up in long restroom lines, suffered that fate this year, and were caught by the ‘balloon people’.”

Although Cynthia ran London in glorious not-typically-English sunny weather, most of her majors saw wet weather, with Tokyo on March 3^rd, being her fourth World Major run in the rain, thankfully a steady drizzle, and not the heavy downpour with near freezing, windy conditions she experienced in April 2018 in Boston.

Describing it as “the race you love to hate,” Cynthia says in spite of the recent hot weather making training difficult, she is looking forward to the shorter Tupelo race, which is returning this year to its unusual 14.2-mile distance, after several years at the 13.1-mile length. “This will be my first time running that strange distance, and it will be great indicator of where I am, heading towards October! Having turned 65 on April 1^st, just before the London Marathon (What better way to celebrate a milestone birthday!), I’ve tried to be careful getting my serious training back up to 40 to 50 miles per week.”