After 22 years, Cathi Remington, a 56-year-old grandmother is running the Marine Corps marathon four times in the 1990s, is returning to the race

Cathi Remington, a 56-year-old grandmother who ran the marathon four times in the 1990s and finished under the 3 1/2-hour mark each time, is returning to the race. "There’s just something about the Marine Corps Marathon," Remington said. If you made a list of the things that 56-year-old Cathi Remington really, really loved, high up on it would be her country, the Marines and grueling races. And so it only makes sense that this grandmother from New Hampshire would look to satisfy that itch for competition by returning to the Marine Corps Marathon for the fifth time. Remington served in the Marines in the early and mid-1980s, and ran the race four times before — every year between 1993 and 1996. Her best finish came in 1995 when she ran the race in 3:14:40, a nearly 14-minute improvement from the year before. In fact, all four times she finished under the 3 1/2-hour mark. “I decided that at age 56 I wanted to get back into racing,” said Remington, who runs a bead shop in Hampton, New Hampshire. “So (22) years later, I’m coming back.” And coming back to this race as opposed to the famed Boston Marathon is a much bigger deal where she’s from. She notes with her heavy New England accent, “everyone loves Boston, and I do too, but for some reason there’s just something about the Marine Corps Marathon.”

posted Tuesday October 9th