'No way': Exeter's Dawn Ebbetts shocked she won Boston Marathon women's 70-74 age group

BOSTON — Exeter's Dawn Ebbets ran her first Boston Marathon this past Monday, and although she felt good about her time, she was pleasantly surprised about what she learned later that day.

On the way home, Ebbett's husband, Douglas Sharek, suggested that Ebbetts, 70, check to see where she placed in her 70-to-74-year-old age group in the 128th running of the historic marathon.

"He goes, 'Maybe you came in first,' and I was just laughing," Ebbetts said. "I'm like, 'There's just no way, there's no way'. When I saw my name, I was just like 'Holy God, I did come in first.'"

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Ebbetts crossed the finish line on Boylston Street in a time of 3 hours, 46 minutes, 2 seconds, first among the 60 runners in the group. Yuko Gordon, from Great Britain's Letchworth Garden City, placed second in 3:46.40.

"I was so relieved," Ebbetts said. "I was just so happy with the time."

Ebbetts, a member of the Exeter Running Club, said her main goal was to just have fun, but there was excitement among other feelings after realizing she won her age group.

"I wanted to play it safe," Ebbetts said. "People told me when you start at Hopkinton, it's all downhill, and you want to run faster than you should down those hills. So, I remembered their advice which was don't go out fast, take it easy. I was like, 'OK, I'm doing that.'"

Ebbetts said the heat, with highs of nearly 70 degrees, didn't bother her, but she made sure to take a stop at the water breaks, stopping to drink water and putting water in her hat.

"I just kept trucking along," she said. "All I cared about was my pace, I didn't look at the elapsed time because I didn't want to get disappointed while I was out there."

Though Monday's Boston Marathon was Ebbett's first attempt at it, she does have some prior experience with marathons - the Bay State Marathon in Lowell, Mass., and the Clarence DeMar Marathon in Keene.

She finished first in her age group in both of those marathons. She surely wasn't expecting that to be the case in Boston.

"There's so many people," Ebbetts said. "I was just like there was no way that would happen because there's way faster 70-year-olds than me, I assumed."

Ebbetts joked Thursday, three days after the race, she was just starting to be able to walk downstairs again. She will have to think about whether to run Boston again next year.

"I've got to think about it because it's so easy to run these local marathons," Ebbetts said. "The amount of people and the lines (in Boston), it's a little overwhelming."

Ebbetts started her training for the Boston Marathon shortly after Christmas. She typically ran six days a week, implementing a rest day. Ebbetts also belongs to the Brooklyn Track Club, a club her daughter, Leigh Sharek, started, though Ebbetts jokingly said she's a 'far away member.'

"I did a combination of speed work on a track and then some easy runs," Ebbetts said. "And then long runs on Sundays."

Ebbetts qualified for Boston by running a 3:38 at the Clarence DeMar Marathon.

"So," she said. "I thought I had to do the Boston Marathon."

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Exeter's Dawn Ebbetts wins Boston Marathon women's 70-74 age group