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Finding Jasper Page 6 THURSDAY, AUGUST 29, 2019
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BERLIN, TOKYO MARATHONS AHEAD FOR LOCAL RUNNER TED CLARKE 97/16 staff
Once Jacqui Pettersen got bitten by the marathon bug, getting faster was the only cure. With virtually every race she shredded increments off her previous best time, but the big breakthrough came last year when she annihilated her PB by 20 minutes running through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. If that wasn’t inspiring enough for the 48-year-old from Prince George to keep up her training, her 3:08:55 time in April at the London Marathon certainly was. Now Pettersen has her sights trained on breaking the three-hour barrier when she returns to Germany for another crack at the Berlin Marathon on Sept. 29. “My first marathon when I was 24 or 25 was 3:46, and up until Berlin last year they’ve all been in that range, give or take a few minutes,” she said. “I’m excited about Berlin this year because that was my breakthrough marathon last year and I’ve gone on to improve my times and I’m hopeful I’ll be able to do that again. “I love beating my younger self.” Pettersen is a voracious reader and the College Heights Secondary School graduate had to develop that habit to help her through 18 years of post-secondary medical school studies to become a neurologist. She had a book, Hansons Marathon Method, sitting on her shelf for years but it required too much running, so she never followed it, until last year. She finally took the time to read it thoroughly and radically changed her approach to training and exercise physiology. She realized she wasn’t running enough and that prompted a radical change. She started running as much as 130 kilometres each week - more than the 100 km per week the book recommended - and that paid off for her last year in Berlin. “It’s made all the difference, it’s been a gamechanger,” said Pettersen. “I followed it very closely except I added a few tweaks
97/16 photos by James Doyle
Jacqui Pettersen has been training at Masich Place Stadium in preparation for upcoming marathons in Berlin and Tokyo. because I feel I need more long-distance time more than made up for that. runs than they require.” Pettersen has always liked running but Her willingness to get up every morning was more into short distances until she saw at 5 a.m. and follow through with her long the Victoria Marathon while she was a mashigh-intensity training runs shed 10 pounds ters student at UVic. The race piqued her from her already-lean five-foot-two frame curiosity and in 1995 when she ran her first which has put her on the path for her first marathon and did it in 3:46. She didn’t run sub-three-hour race. the 42.2 km distance again until 2003, also The London race on April 28th, her ninth in Victoria, and did one more the following marathon, on a chilly day with 20,000 runyear in Calgary with her husband Kevin. In that race, on a sweltering day they both hit ners, did not come without some intestinal the runners’ wall and she swore she’d never discomfort for Pettersen. Twice she had to put herself in that situation again. But in make pit stops along the way. But her fast
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2013 she returned to Victoria and set a PB and hasn’t looked back since. “I was enjoying running shorter distances and Kevin said to me, ‘I think I’m going to run another marathon and before long I was also training for Victoria again,” she said. “It felt good, it felt like I was starting to get the hang of running marathons. I qualified for Boston that year but I got injured so I couldn’t do it.” She ran in New York the following year and her time was quick enough to get her to Boston. Running those big races proved addictive as her times continued to fall and that began her quest to complete her bucket list. In mountaineering, scaling the highest peaks of the seven continents is the ultimate goal. In the marathon world, the dream of most runners is to complete the big six - Boston, New York, Chicago, London, Berlin and Tokyo. Pettersen already has five of them under her belt and on March 1st, 2020 she plans to complete the list when she races the Tokyo Marathon. She found out last week she’s locked up a Run as One start position in the semi-elite category for the Tokyo race. “I never thought that would ever be possible, I’ve always said marathons are not my thing, I’m a sprinter, so it is kind of shocking how I’ve improved,” Pettersen said. “It just goes to show that with the right training program and motivation and dedication I think anybody who puts their mind to it can do this.” As a cognitive neurologist, Pettersen treats patients suffering from memory loss or Parkinson’s disease. Eighty per cent of her work involves teaching medical students as a UBC instructor and conducting research. Every marathon is a learning process for Pettersen and her Berlin experience last year was like no other. She was among 40,000 runners and hoofing it through the narrow streets of the city took some getting Continued on page 8
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