Somerville pair pave
way for North runners
in Marathon
For Diona Fulton, 29, the most satisfying part of running through Wellesley during last week's Boston Marathon wasn't Wellesley College's famed "wall of sound." It was running past another group of spectators.
"That was the best part of the whole race, going through Wellesley and seeing a handful of my students screaming 'There goes my gym teacher,' " the Somerville resident and longtime substitute teacher at Fiske Elementary School said the morning after running the 113th Boston Marathon last Monday. "They had a sign out for me. It was so fun. It made the race for me. It put a spring in my shoes."
Of the 927 runners from 55 communities in Globe North's Massachusetts coverage area, Fulton's time (2 hours 52 minutes, 5 seconds) qualified her as the best runner out of 378 North Shore women who completed the 26.2-mile course. Running only about 20 minutes slower than winner Salina Kosgei of Kenya, Fulton recorded the fastest female time among Bay Staters, and the Topsfield native was the 31st woman overall to cross the finish line.
Somerville is also home to the race's fastest Massachusetts man, David Bedoya, whose 2:27.13 was about 18 minutes behind the winner, Ethiopian Deriba Merga.
Bedoya, 32, said his life has changed since the Globe recognized him last year for being the fastest runner in the former City Weekly circulation area. Given the fact that his wife delivered their first son, Leo, in October, the same month Bedoya successfully defended his PhD dissertation in environmental engineering at Northeastern University, the Spaniard expected to run slower than last year's time of 2:27:33, which was second best in Massachusetts.
"I had his name on my left arm; it was fun because a lot of people were calling me my son's name," Bedoya said after dropping Leo off at daycare just before 8:30 a.m. the day after the race. "It was big motivation for sure."
Bedoya, 32, who now works at a consulting firm and teaches at NU, was the 36th man to cross the line on Monday.
And on Tuesday instead of using his usual mode of commuting to work by running, Bedoya relaxed and drove.
Mark LaRosa of Melrose was the second-fastest man from the region, with a time of 2:33:14. LaRosa has trained with Bedoya, even though he runs for the Boston Athletic Association and Bedoya runs for the Greater Boston Track Club.
"I was standing next to David on the start line," said LaRosa, 30, a graphic designer. "He was trying to run a lot faster than me from the start, so after the first 30 seconds or so he started pushing up. So we never really ran together."
LaRosa also has a toddler in his family and is expecting another one soon. As their families grew and their quality of sleep diminished, LaRosa and Bedoya decreased their road work by about 35 percent, running roughly 80 miles per week. But while LaRosa said cutting back from the 120-miles-per-week regimen that helped him run a personal best 2:23:48 at the Chicago Marathon in 2006 caused him to lose confidence mentally and physically, Bedoya benefited from the break.
"My philosophy is that there is no point in running more miles if you cannot recover from them," Bedoya said. "I cannot sleep 10 hours a day. That's been my approach this year, and it worked well."
Jill Trotter of Westford, on the other hand, proved that Bedoya and LaRosa should be able to log high mileage once again when their children are a little older. Trotter, 37, the fourth-fastest woman in the north region with a time of 3:06:12, has three children ages 3, 6, and 8. Trotter started to run a consistent 55 miles per week once she started training with the Greater Lowell Road Runners and Nate Jenkins, who finished seventh in last year's Olympic Trials.
"Just doing that, it boosted my confidence to know that I could go out and run that pace for a full marathon," said Trotter, who was forced to taper down to 20 miles the last three weeks of training because of a leg injury. "Just having the training behind me definitely boosted my confidence."
Her children also boosted her confidence with about 10 miles left in Monday's marathon.
"Around mile 16, I had a lot of family and friends," she said. "Yes, it was great."
Fulton, the teacher in Wellesley, runs for the Somerville Road Runners and was also prodded by a former coach, who died of kidney cancer two years ago at the age of 54. Recognizing Fulton's potential, the late Steve Burton sat her down the year before he died and said, " 'Enough with doing this for fun; why don't you start trying?' " Fulton said, recalling the moment she decided to bump her training up from 60 miles a week to 100. "Since then, I'm a high-mile guru. I run 120 and 130 miles a week. It kind of helped me out."
Fulton, who began Monday's race by keeping pace with the elite women before falling back, shouldn't have a problem maintaining a high mileage schedule if she ever chooses to have children of her own.
"I don't require a ton of sleep," she said. "It's helpful. I run twice a day, go to bed late and wake up early." 
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