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Bertuzzi
first returned to running following her graduation from
L.U. at a time she was doing volunteer firefighting. “I
just decided to go outside for a run,” she recalled.
“There’s no race; there’s no pressure;
there’s just me going as slow or as fast as I want.
The more I would do it, the more I felt I could do longer
distances.”
On the urging of her uncle (Leo Kari),
Bertuzzi ventured into the half-marathon as part of the
Sudbury Rocks Marathon festivities a few years before
Covid. “I was just going out to run 10km pretty
regularly so it didn’t seem like that big of a deal
to do a half-marathon,” she said.
By the time she had completed the half
in her hometown on four separate occasions, there was
a yearning to do more – though preferably somewhere
out of town. “Toronto (Marathon) is more of a downhill
and flat course” – just the setting, perhaps,
to take a shot at hitting the Boston standard for her
age group of 3:25 or so.
“I have always said I wasn’t
planning on qualifying for Boston – but deep down,
I was secretly hoping to qualify – even if I didn’t
express that to everybody,” said Bertuzzi.
Dr Julianne Falconi had most certainly
entertained the same thought over her years of mixing
in the priority that was running with countless academic
undertakings. The 40 year-old Sudbury native who currently
calls Toronto home (but is a frequent visitor to the north)
was completing her sixth marathon last month.
That said, none of the previous five could
quite compare.
“Boston is in a league of its own,”
said Falconi, who also walked away quite happy with her
time of 3:44 in a race that she would run a mere eight
months or so following the birth of her first child, Vittulio.
“It’s been sort of a life goal to run Boston
so I knew a great deal about the course.”
For as much as running has been part of
the mix since her days attending Guelph University some
two decades ago, it was dance that occupied her time in
her teenage years and before. “The discipline of
dance training really helped,” she said.
“In theory, it should also help
with flexibility and stretching” – though
her laugh might suggest that was not necessarily the case.
A former teacher, Falconi has travelled a very interesting
life journey, even if one discounts all of her adventures
in races and training and such.
The daughter of a family physician, she
decided relatively late to follow those footsteps, this
tangent leading her to study at St Matthew’s University
in Grand Cayman, fortunate enough to secure a residency
in the aftermath with the University of Toronto family
medicine department, thus allowing her to return, as she
wished, to practice in Canada.
Through it all, running was an integral
part of her daily routine.
“I am a huge proponent of staying
active and making things a priority if its important to
you,” said Falconi. “Especially through medical
school, deep in the trenches, I needed my priorities.
Running allowed me to think more clearly, sleep better,
focus better. It just helped me be an overall better person.”
One who has grown to garner an appreciation
for those episodes in life that some might take for granted.
Like Bertuzzi, Falconi dealt with the
quad pain of early downhills giving way to eventual climbs.
She was equally thrilled with the start
to finish support that runners in Boston receive. But
the moment that really touched her was a far more personal
one, borne of a reality that few within her training group
could necessarily relate to.
“Boston has amazing accommodations
for lactating women,” Falconi noted. “There
was a lactation tent at the start of the race. There were
many women in this tent, all ranges of post-partum, from
three months to a year – and we were all in there
together.”
“It was the most amazing experience
to have that sort of bonding.”
Just one more reason to never, ever forget
her first Boston.
At the other end of the Boston spectrum
sits Norm Lonergan, the local sexagenarian who ran the
race for the 10th time last month, clocking in at 4:09.44.
Rounding out the Sudbury field who completed the 2026
Boston Marathon were Cassidy Throssel (3:29.30) and Heleen
de Necker (3:33.53).
(*all of the above is based on info obtained
either through Sudbury Rocks Running Club website or word
of mouth – if I have missed anyone, please email
me at info@sudburysports.com)
Not surprisingly, we did in fact miss
a local connection, even if it ties into a current resident
of Toronto. Still, Cailtyn Kusnierczyk is hardly an unknown
in local sporting circles, having skied with the Adanac
Ski Club and part of a well-known family in hockey, golf
and such.
Kusnierczyk completed the Boston Marathon
in 3:24:11, finishing in the upper tier of all women who
partook in the race.
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