MEANINGFUL MARATHON: CAPE WOMAN DECIDES TO RUN TO HONOR OTHERS

With little experience in long-distance running and her 45th birthday a few weeks off, Joyce Hunter has decided to run a marathon.

It's not for her own health, she said, but for two people with arthritis.

"Marathons are a dime a dozen," said Hunter, who took up running last year. "If I was going to go through this long training process, I wanted more meaning out of it than crossing a finish line."

Hunter is one of about 3,000 people in the United States training to run this fall in the Arthritis Foundation's "Joints in Motion" marathon in Dublin, Ireland.

The run is open to anyone who will pledge to raise $4,000 for two people with arthritis and participate in a 20-week supervised training program to prepare for the marathon.

Former orthopedic nurse Marilyn Duncan has been promoting the marathon since she opened the Arthritis Foundation's first Southeast Missouri office in Cape Girardeau last November.

"You run a marathon in honor of someone with arthritis, and your meals and travel are paid for in return for your efforts," Duncan said.

Earlier this year, a "Joints in Motion" marathon was held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Duncan is still seeking applicants for a December marathon in Hawaii.

If Hunter only wanted to travel to Europe, she said it would be cheaper and less painful to call her travel agent. Instead, she suits up and runs the streets of Cape Girardeau four days a week.

She's no hardbody

Two other Southeast Missouri residents, physician James and Sara O'Rourke, have joined Hunter in fund-raising and running. Hunter is the youngest of the group.

"They're not small, hard-bodied, muscled runners," said Hunter, marketing director for Westfield Shoppingtown. "They're people like me."

The training officially started June 18, but Hunter said she was preparing earlier.

Bill Logan, marketing director for HealthSouth and a marathon runner, is training the group. When he attended the "Joints in Motion" marathon in Vancouver this year, Logan said it taught him something he hadn't learned after running five marathons himself.

"It proved something to me that I wasn't aware of: You do not have to be extremely fit to complete a marathon," he said. "But you might not do it in a specific time."

As Hunter trains, she said Logan is teaching her to watch her heart rate above all else. When it races too high, she has to slow down and sometimes walk. As her heart rate stays lower consistently, she is able to build speed.

"I may only be doing eight or nine miles in two hours now, but Bill says it's a building process."

Through friends, Hunter asked a 13-year-old student and a 38-year-old accountant if she could run to honor their struggles with arthritis.

Sydney Herbst said her daughter, Allyson, is a little embarrassed by the attention.

"She's 13 and she wants to be like everyone else," Herbst said.

Allyson's juvenile rheumatoid arthritis has not kept her from playing saxophone in her school band, playing the piano and participating with a basketball team, said Charlie Herbst, her father.

She handles the pain in her left wrist and knee resolutely, he said.

"She won't admit it, but on damp days she feels it more," he said.

Living with pain

Paula Huggins feels honored that Hunter chose her.

Huggins began to feel the effects of arthritis in her knees and wrists when her son was born four years ago.

"I'd get up to feed my son and I'd have to cradle the bottle in my arm because I couldn't hold it in my hand," she said.

If she didn't take a tablet normally used in chemotherapy each weekend to manage her arthritis, Huggins said she'd barely be able to walk.

Describing herself as a private person, Huggins said the extra attention she has received by soliciting support for Hunter's marathon has stretched her personally and professionally. As an accountant, she knows her clients depend on her, and she can't let arthritis interfere.

Huggins gives her encouragement to run, Hunter said.

"When the marathon is over, I can quit running," she said. "But people like Paula can't walk away from arthritis."

Hunter has asked her supporters to return yellow ribbons, which she will sew on the running shorts she'll wear in Ireland.

Duncan has told Hunter many people walk the 26.2-mile length of the marathon, but Hunter said she isn't training to walk.

"I've committed to it," she said. "I want to run."