For women's winner, 1st time is a charm

A year ago, former Providence High School track star Maureen Campbell finished 10th overall in her first half-marathon: the Amica Insurance Half Marathon, which is run in conjunction with Thunder Road.

On Saturday, the 24-year-old woman friends know as "Mo" ran Thunder Road as her first full marathon ... and won the female overall title -- in 3:04:23. The runner-up finished more than 10 minutes behind her.

And to think that in late November, she wasn't even sure she was going to be able to race at all.

"Three weeks before the race, I developed a knee injury that had me struggling through a five-mile run," Campbell told me this morning. "I was so frustrated, but I went to see Mike Danenberg of Performance Therapy and Dan Bowker of Bowker Chiropractic for soft tissue and chiropractic work, and I know that I may not even have raced on Saturday had it not been for them.

"Taking their prescribed time off was unnerving, but I am so thankful I listened to them and that they took such good care of me so close to the marathon."

As for her first-marathon experience, in an e-mail to me Sunday, she wrote:

"The race was such an incredible experience and the weather could not have been better for us!

"This was my first marathon, so I went into it without any real expectations. I trained with a 3:10 goal in mind because I wanted to run the men's qualifying time for Boston. I thought 3:10 was lofty for my first one, and going into it, part of me was saying to just be happy with finishing my first marathon. But I knew if I didn't allow myself to think 3:10 was possible, there is no way I could do it.

"I didn't hit the wall, but I really enjoyed 'slapping it' in NoDa! The crowd support was really great, and talking with other runners throughout the race made it all go by so fast! Run For Your Life did a great job putting this on. It is such a good time of year to run this and reflect on how thankful I am for falling in love with running, and the wonderful friendships and experiences that have come from spending miles together."

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Alice Rogers, 31, was the second-fastest Charlotte woman in 3:14:28. Thirty-seven-year-old Angela Pilkington of Harrisburg finished fifth in 3:18:10.