Helen Dole
by Amy Duquette
Helen Dole has a unique outlook on running. She loves to run, but doesn’t like training schedules. Instead,
she follows more of a ‘know yourself and run when you want, for as long as you want’ individualized schedule.
She also considers marathons to be more of a "cultural experience than a physical one". From looking at her
times, it’s clear her ideas have merit. Using her personalized training technique, she trained for and competed
in two New York City marathons; first in 2007 at age 25 and then again in 2008. Helen qualified for Boston both
times, with a finishing time of 3:31:27 her first year and shaving off a good 17 minutes the following year with
3:14:28. Even with these notable times, she has not decided if she’ll run Boston and is still considering whether
to run New York again. She is sure however, that running has been and will continue to be an integral part of her
life.
Helen ran her first road race at age 8. Her hometown of Shelburne Falls in Western Massachusetts hosts an annual
10K that is popular with the community. Helen’s mother, father and older sister all volunteered at the event while
her older brother competed. The children of the town were offered the option to run the first 2 miles of the course
before the actual 10K start. Helen did this until she was able to complete the entire course at age 13, literally
following in her brother’s footsteps along the course.
Around this age, Helen joined her middle school’s cross-country team and had the fortunate experience of working
with Coach Joe Chadwick. From 6th grade until she graduated from high school, Coach Chadwick worked with Helen as
she developed her running skills. To this day Helen feels a strong emotional connection to her first coach. "He
never took credit for his team’s success, he had us push each other and always kept encouraging us...He wanted us
to support the other team and congratulate them if they won," she said.
Coach Chadwick definitely left a lasting impression on Helen. On the cold morning of December 7, 2008, Helen ran
the Joe Kleinerman 10K in Central Park in 42:29. After finishing her race, rather than making her way toward a
warmer space, I found her standing in her PPTC singlet near the finish line cheering for several runners who were
finishing up their races. Making running enjoyable for middle school children is no easy task, but Coach Chadwick
found a way to do it. He continues to coach at the school and, 13 years later, Helen continues to find running
enjoyable, and cheers for everyone running. In high school Helen tried other sports, playing on the basketball
team, and found it difficult to transfer from Coach Chadwick’s ideology to the ‘attack the other team’ mentality
of other team sports.
Graduating from high school and attending Amherst College, Helen went on to run for her Division 3 college indoor
and outdoor cross country teams and ran track all 4 seasons. She found that many of her fellow peers in the geology
major were also runners. Both geologists and runners tend to enjoy exploring the outdoors. In addition to running,
Helen competed in the Heptathlon in both high school and college. This 7 event competition took place over 2 days
and included the following events: the 800, the 200, the high hurdles, the long jump, the high jump, the shot put
and the javelin, testing the athletes’ various skills.
After college Helen eventually made her way to New York City where she immediately began teaching middle school
science. She also attended Pace at night to achieve her Master’s degree. After two years, she completed the night
program but continued teaching. Helen is currently in her fifth consecutive year at this job. She found that her
first year of teaching was the toughest to get in her own running. She was coaching running to the students, but
found that she was running for herself only on the weekends. In the second year, in order to find the right balance,
Helen did not continue to coach and was able to carry over lesson plans from her first year. Now she was finally
able to get back into her running.
As a teacher with summers free, Helen has used her time off to travel for work. She went to California and Colorado
and worked for the Department of Energy in the Teacher as Scientist program doing climate change research. In
Colorado, at 8,000 feet, she was able to get in 6 days of running a week. "After college I became a better runner,
I found what was right for me...what felt good." Helen achieved her PR in a 5k with a time of 19:33 in 2008 Paramus
road race that Coach Tony and Charlene drove her and some fellow PPTC teammates to.
After settling into her teaching job, found the club by doing a google search for ‘track clubs’ in Brooklyn. The
Wednesday night and Saturday morning group runs, along with the Tuesday night Speed Series, are a great way for her
to train with others as well as adding some consistency to her training. Helen also runs with the Hash House
Harriers. With this team, she has completed the Need for Speed 60 mile team relay and the 200 mile Green Mountain
Relay in Vermont, events she loves. Helen also just enjoys the running community as a whole "...because it is a fun
way to be around other people who are also runners." For those that do not know about their Monday night events,
which Helen runs in whenever she can, the group engages in what could be called a running scavenger hunt. Their
final destination is a bar where they end the run with a celebratory beer. For Helen, the event is reminiscent of
the running games Coach Chadwick would use to keep his young runners engaged. Running through the cornfields,
collecting husks and dropping them off in the bed of his truck, for example.
Since her first race, Helen has been excited by the sport of running. In her current position as a teacher, she
often has to wait to experience the rewards of her hard work. Running, however, always provides an instant
gratification. And with her speed, ‘instant’ is an appropriate word.