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Booking It Back to Boston with Allison Sauntry

Booking It Back to Boston Run Tri Bike Dylan Roche

When you think of a runner who’s run the Boston Marathon year after year, it would be easy to think of somebody who’s all elite and intimidating—and even though Allison Sauntry has an impressive number of races and PR times on her resume, she talks about her running life and her journey to qualify for arguably the most prestigious of the World Majors in such a down-to-earth, modest way.

Part of it might be that she never expected to become a runner. “I did not grow up an athlete at all—I always believed myself to be very unathletic, and I hated gym class when I was in high school,” she said. “Athletics was not part of my life.

The Start of Something Unexpected

That changed when she started running in her 20s simply to stay in shape. This progressed steadily into races of longer and longer distances: A friend encouraged her to do a 5K, and from there she registered for a 10-miler. “I thought, ‘Well, I might as well do a half-marathon if I ran a 10-miler, because it’s just another 5K, right?’” she recalls. Before she knew it, she’d done a few half marathons, and then was registering for the Pittsburgh Marathon in 2015. “And it has just spiraled from there,” she quips.

She credits her late-discovered athleticism with the fact that running doesn’t require her to be particularly coordinated the way she would have to be in a ball sport. Plus, she’s able to enjoy some quiet alone time, which she wouldn’t have if she were doing a team sport. Instead, she’s able to enjoy an hour or two by herself when she’s out running, and it gives her a sense of calm.


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Consistency: The Secret to Success

These days, she’s following a 12-week training plan as she books it back to the Boston Marathon for the fifth time this April. But even though she gets serious about training as she prepares for a big race, she maintains a solid base all year-round. In fact, the best advice she could give any runner would be to focus on consistency.

“I think that’s probably what’s led to a lot of my success as a runner is I’ve been doing this for years and I do it regularly,” she says. “Only after a marathon will I take weeks off. I just keep at it. Even when I’m not training, I do base mileage.”

Lessons Learned on the Course

Even with all the experience she has and the diligent training she does, running still brings plenty of surprises and lessons along the way. She recalls a bad experience she had doing a marathon last fall when she took a higher-calorie gel during the race, and even though she’d tried it before during training, it didn’t sit well with her on race day for one reason or another. Without any explanation she can point to, she sums it up by saying, “Sometimes, it might just be a bad day.” Still, she says she’ll be sticking with gels she’s used to in the future.

She’s also not looking to slow down any time soon and knows some of her fastest races might still be yet to come. Her marathon PR (for now) is 3:18, which she ran in Chicago in 2022. “I do still feel like I might be able to beat it,” she says.

Inspiring the “Unathletic” to Dream Big

Whether she hits that new PR at Boston this year or another future marathon, Allison will be out there training throughout the year, proving that even people who once thought themselves “unathletic” can accomplish impressive things with dedication and consistency. Showing up on a regular basis will help you book it back to Boston or another race of your dreams.

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Dylan Roche Run Tri Bike Contributor

Dylan Roche is a journalist, blogger, novelist, and runner based in Annapolis, Maryland. His work has been published with regional and national outlets both in print and online. He's also written two YA fantasy novels, The Purple Bird and The Tide and the Stars. When he isn't writing, he's often training for his next marathon or ultra.