Three women from cottage country came in fifth place at the 2015 Boston Marathon.
Jessica Sheppard, Katherine Ahokas and Martina Morton raced as the Muskoka Algonquin Runners, competing in the Women’s Open team division.
The trio conquered the marathon, finishing the race with a combined time of nine hours which was good enough for 5th in the world.
“Had a look at the results from the past five years, from what I can see there are no other Canadian teams that have done that so pretty awesome,” said Katherine Ahokas.
“We knew if we could run about three hours each we’d have a pretty good shot at top ten,” said Jessica Sheppard.
The girls are used to shattering expectations and Boston was no different. Despite the weather, the women proved their Muskoka grit.
“We had terrible weather conditions out there almost the entire race and it started raining quite heavily so it was pretty brutal out there,” added Martina Morton.
“For me personally once I realized I can actually do this, which was not something I knew I could do until mile twenty, that gives you a lot of energy to keep pushing through,” added Sheppard.
Jessica and Katherine qualified for the Boston Marathon in Vermont; along with Martina they knew they were good enough to finish the race with a respectable time.
“You don’t really know who your competition is there, there are teams from all over the world, some teams had upwards of 12, 15 runners,” says Ahokas.
But what gave the Muskoka women the edge, was where they trained, giving them endurance for the 26.2 mile race.
“Moving up here I was like I don’t think I can train up here, it is way too challenging but it just makes you stronger,” adds Morton.
With their fifth place finish, the trio has qualified for next year’s Boston Marathon but they have not committed to running the race at this time.
