Francene Johnson
February 13, 2025
I was mainly a sprinter in school, but my high school coach at the time suggested I run cross country to help better my 400 meter races. 400 felt like a marathon at the time! I was terrified running 3.1 miles—what?! Well, my coach (no longer living) convinced me that I ended up running cross country. It made me a better sprinter. It earned me a few state titles in my sprints and sprint relays with awesome teammates!
As I got older and no longer running, I was asked to help coach track at my kids’ private school. I ended up doing it and loved it! It brought back memories of my running days and I caught the bug. In my 40’s the time, I was so inspired by the track kids and wanted to start running 5K’s again. It’s running to think that after thing my coach was crazy for thinking running cross country would supplement my sprinting.
Anyways, I went on to sign up for 5Ks and started training. I had my high school coach on Facebook and would see my posts about my training. He’d tell me not to do too much too soon because one day early in the training I was feeling ran almost 7 miles! He was right!
So, 5Ks turned into half marathons. After about three of them I got curious about the marathon. At the time I watched Kara Goucher run the Boston Marathon—WOW! Watching the marathon got me dreaming of running the Boston Marathon one day. I got on YouTube and searched marathon blogs and motivational stories. Fast forward maybe two years later or so and I qualified for the Boston Marathon, Chicago Marathon and completed both.
I wanted to come back to Ohio where my running all started and run a marathon in my home state! I’m happy to be signed up to run my 18th full marathon at the Cleveland Marathon!!!