By Brian Zanzonico
The former Franklin Square resident's husband, Stephen, and her daughter, Sarah, 12, were in Eisenhower Park May 7 when Christine's lead was so substantial that she was escorted to the finish line only by bikes. But her sons, Matthew, 10, Andrew, 8, and James, 4, were back home in Basking Ridge, N.J., the image of their mother being whisked off the street and rushed to a hospital during the Boston Marathon only three weeks earlier still fresh.
In Boston, Glockenmeier developed hypothermia and was forced to drop out of the race with nine miles left. Strange as it seems, that set the stage for her victory two weekends ago.
Glockenmeier, 38, is the school board vice president at her three eldest children's school, a parish nurse and a volunteer with her son's and daughter's scout troops. She juggles those responsibilities with the others attendant to raising four kids under 13, along with those of marriage and marathon training. Her next 26.2-mile challenge is in Chicago in October.
"I guess I have a lot of energy," she said four days after posting the best time of the 138 women who completed the 34th Long Island Marathon, and finishing eighth out of a total of 551 competitors who finished.
But don't think for a second that training for a marathon throws Glockenmeier's life into disarray. She says it actually calms her, restoring order to her mind. "I'm more balanced when I run," she said. "I think clearly, and I'm able to organize my life."
Her days start early: Glockenmeier is awake at 5 a.m., and her run, stretch and cool-down are completed between 7 and 7:30. The children usually wake up shortly after she finishes, and she morphs from athlete to mom, fixing breakfast, packing lunches and readying backpacks. At 8:30 the kids are loaded into her SUV and it's off to school. The three oldest children attend St. James School in Basking Ridge, and James goes to St. James Preschool next door to his siblings.
Then Glockenmeier is off to the chiropractor for an adjustment, which is followed by strength training, which is followed by another run. Then she picks up James, comes home for a while, and returns to St. James to pick up the other children and take them to swimming lessons. Then, after picking the kids up, cooking, eating dinner and getting them ready for bed, followed by some precious downtime, Glockenmeier sets her alarm clock for 5 a.m. and turns in.
"The kids are proud of me," she said. "They're supportive, and it makes me want to do better."
Glockenmeier, then Christine Brough, grew up on Maple Drive in Franklin Square, which straddles the Stewart Manor border. She attended St. Catherine of Sienna School and Maria Regina, which merged with St. Agnes her senior year and is now Kellenberg High School. She ran track events ranging from the 800 meters to the 3,000 in high school, when she met Stephen, a Chaminade track star from Valley Stream, at a meet in the New York City Armory. "I guess you can say we're high school sweethearts," she said. "That was it."
They went to different colleges - she to Georgetown University on a track scholarship, and Stephen 1,200 miles away, to Creighton University in Omaha, Neb. Recruited as a miler, Glockenmeier became a Big East conference champion in the 5,000 meters, and Stephen ran cross-country.
After graduating as a pediatric nurse practitioner in 1989, Glockenmeier moved from Washington, D.C., back to New York, where she worked in pediatric oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. The next year, she and Stephen wed, and three years later Sarah was born. When Matthew arrived two years later, she stopped working. The couple had two more children over the next six years. Shortly after James was born, thoughts of resuming running crept into Christine's mind.
"I took 14 years off from competitive running," she said. "My sister ran, and it inspired me to do it."
Glockenmeier got into shape for the 2003 New York City Marathon by pushing baby James in a sport stroller. She finished the race in 3 hours, 11 minutes, and ran 3:12 a year later. That year, her old St. Agnes track coach, Ray Hauck, was checking race results and saw her name. "I saw 'C. Brough-Glockenmeier,' and I knew her as Christine Brough and knew she dated Stephen Glockenmeier in high school, and heard they continued to date in college and got married," Hauck said. "I thought, How many Christine Brough-Glockenmeiers could there be?"
He looked for her on the Internet, and found that she was the St. James school board vice president. He contacted the principal of a district school, who put him in touch with Glockenmeier. When they reunited, Hauck, as he had more than a decade earlier, began to train her.
"I knew her, and [3:12] was pretty slow for her," he said. "Knowing her talent, and all the times I had seen her run, I knew she was capable of better."
Under Hauck's guidance, which included a cross-training program that incorporated bike riding, running in water, and using a cross-country ski machine, Glockenmeier improved her marathon time to 2:49 at the Boston Marathon in 2005. Despite not getting to sleep until the wee hours the night before the race because she was cleaning up after a school district fund-raiser, Glockenmeier was the 16th woman and the fourth American woman to finish.
With the entire Glockenmeier brood there to root her on at her fifth Boston Marathon last month, she was loaded into an ambulance with the race more than half over and taken to a hospital, the victim of excessive loss of body heat. "I underestimated the wind and temperatures," she said. "I'm tall and lean, and at one point I couldn't feel my hands. But I recovered and was released within a few hours' time."
Hauck said that Glockenmeier's inability to finish Boston was the only reason he allowed her to enter the Long Island Marathon. Two complete marathons in less than a month would have been too physically taxing, and increased the odds of injury. "She's very able to do a lot of things, but she wouldn't have been able to run in the Long Island Marathon," said Hauck, who now not only coaches Glockenmeier, but offers guidance on her running career. "There are rules she and I have about things like that. I guess there's a silver lining in everything."
To spare them the potential horror of seeing their mother hurt twice in less than a month, Glockenmeier opted to leave her youngest children at home while she ran the Long Island Marathon. But this time, instead of an ambulance taking her away, a bicycle escort led her along the narrow paved path through Eisenhower Park, around the runners completing the half marathon and to the finish line.
"It helped me to know where the finish line was, and to navigate around the other runners," Glockenmeier said of the escort, which was ordered by race organizers. "I didn't want to zigzag. I wanted to be sure I had space."
She was already sure of victory. At the turn-around point on the Wantagh Parkway 17 miles into the race, she had a sizable lead. She finished the race in 2:51:11, more than six minutes faster than her nearest female competitor, who was 10 years her junior. "I controlled my pace in the beginning and made sure I was steady throughout," Glockenmeier said.
Her next marathon is five months away, but her focus is on the spring of 2008 - the women's marathon Olympic Trials. She said she is 48 seconds from qualifying for the trials. "My goals are to make the trials," she said. "But as long as I keep reaching my goals, anything" -- including a spot on the 2008 Olympic team -- "can happen."
Stephen and the children provide Glockenmeier with all the inspiration she needs at home. In turn, she hopes her story motivates other mothers to give running a try. The results, she said, will surprise them. "I want people to realize that this is something to do for you," she said. "Instead of being tired, I have more energy when I run than when I don't."
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