They Didn't Think They Were Runners. Vermont City Marathon Proved Them Wrong.

Nobody hands you a marathon. You don't stumble into 26.2 miles by accident. But the reasons people find their way to the start line are as varied and unpredictable as Vermont weather in April — and sometimes, the people who look least likely to finish are the ones who carry the most powerful stories across the line.

We talked to three Vermont City Marathon finishers who, by their own admission, had no business being there. They'd tell you themselves.

"I Was 54 and Hadn't Run a Mile in Twenty Years"

Roger Thibodeau spent most of his adult life telling people he wasn't a runner. The retired middle school principal from St. Johnsbury had played basketball in his 30s, done some hiking, walked the dog. Running felt like something other people did — younger people, thinner people, people who owned fancy shoes.

Then his wife, Diane, signed up for the Vermont City Marathon relay. She needed a team member for a single 5-mile leg. Roger said yes mostly to be supportive. Then he actually trained for it.

"Something happened," he says, still a little surprised by it. "I started running three mornings a week just to not embarrass myself in front of Diane's friends. And then I started looking forward to it. Like, genuinely looking forward to it. That had never happened before with exercise."

A year later, at 54, Roger ran his first full marathon at Vermont City. His finish time was 5:22. He cried at mile 25 and again at the finish line.

"I'm not embarrassed to say that," he says. "I worked for that finish. Every single minute of it."

For anyone in their 50s or beyond who's watching from the sidelines: Roger's advice is blunt. "Stop waiting to feel ready. You won't. Just go run a mile. Then two. The marathon will take care of itself if you just keep showing up."

He's registered for his third Vermont City Marathon this year.

Running on a Body That Wasn't Supposed to

Melanie Dupont was told by two different orthopedic surgeons that she should "avoid high-impact activities" after a complicated knee surgery in her early 40s. She'd torn her ACL in a skiing accident, had a rough recovery, and developed chronic inflammation that made walking on bad days feel like a negotiation.

"Running was just not in the plan," she says. "I had accepted that."

What changed was a friend's offhand suggestion to try a run-walk approach — short intervals of jogging broken up by deliberate walking breaks. Melanie was skeptical. She tried it anyway on a flat trail near her home in Shelburne, half expecting her knee to shut the experiment down immediately.

It didn't.

"I ran for two minutes, walked for three. Did that for twenty minutes. And my knee was fine. Not perfect, but fine. I went home and cried because I thought that door was closed."

Melanie spent eighteen months building up carefully — working with a physical therapist, listening obsessively to her body, and learning to treat rest as training rather than failure. She crossed the Vermont City Marathon finish line using a run-walk strategy, completing the course in just over six hours.

"People asked me why I didn't just do a 5K," she says. "Because a 5K wasn't the thing I was told I couldn't do. The marathon was. That's the one that mattered."

Her practical takeaway for runners managing injuries or physical limitations: find a physical therapist who actually runs, be honest with yourself about pain versus discomfort, and don't let anyone else define what's possible for your body.

The Therapist Said to Try Running. She Was Right.

Marcus Webb didn't come to running through a race or a friend's invitation. He came to it through a very difficult year.

At 38, the Burlington graphic designer was managing anxiety and depression that had become, in his words, "loud enough to make everything else quiet." His therapist suggested exercise — not as a cure, but as a tool. Marcus had tried the gym and hated it. He tried yoga and felt awkward. On a whim, he went for a run around his neighborhood at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday.

"It was the first time in months that my brain shut up," he says. "Not permanently. Not even for the whole run. But there were stretches where I was just... running. Not thinking about everything else. Just moving."

He started running consistently. Not fast. Not far. Just regularly. The mental health benefits were real and cumulative — better sleep, reduced anxiety on running days, a sense of structure that the rest of his life had been missing.

The marathon came later, almost as a side effect. "I wasn't training for a race. I was training for my mental health. And then I realized I'd been running long enough and far enough that a marathon was actually possible."

Marcus ran Vermont City Marathon two years after that first 6 a.m. shuffle around his block. He describes the finish line as "the first time I felt genuinely proud of myself in a long time."

He's careful not to oversell running as a mental health solution. "It's not a replacement for therapy or medication or whatever you need. But for me, it's a really important part of the toolkit. The marathon gave me a goal when I needed one badly."

What These Stories Actually Mean

Roger, Melanie, and Marcus don't have much in common on paper. Different ages, different backgrounds, different reasons for running. But they share something that shows up in a lot of Vermont City Marathon finishers: they didn't start because they were ready. They started because something nudged them forward, and they followed that nudge long enough to find out what they were capable of.

The Vermont City Marathon isn't just a race for competitive athletes. It's a community event, and the community includes first-timers in their 50s, runners with complicated medical histories, and people who came to the sport looking for something that had nothing to do with pace or podiums.

If you're on the fence — reading this and wondering whether you're the kind of person who does something like this — take it from three people who asked themselves the same question.

They were. And so are you.