Connie Brown Can't Quit

Hello! Welcome to the first edition of The Footprint.

The best runs are unpredictable. Maybe you learn something, meet someone, or end up somewhere you haven't been before.

That's what this newsletter will try to emulate, with notes and stories about running and runners – inspiring people and interesting ideas – every Friday.

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About an hour after finishing last year’s New York City Marathon, my phone buzzed. “Congratulations Callum!!!!!” read the message. “Did you love it? I hope you did.”

Then the sender told me about her day. It was the latest chapter of an extraordinary story – written through New York’s five boroughs, and beyond, over five decades.

Meet Connie.

44, and counting

No woman has run New York City more than Connie Brown. Having tackled the marathon 44 times, she spent months last year training for the 45th. 

But as tens of thousands of runners made their way to the start on Staten Island last November, Brown, 81, was not among them. For the first time since 1978, she couldn’t make it.

“I don't know if you've ever had to do something that you knew was the right thing to do, but it hurt you to do it?” she asked during a recent interview. “There was no other thing to do.”

Brown had been “all packed, ready to go,” when she made the decision. Her husband, Matt, was struggling with cancer. Three days before the race, things took a turn, and there was “no question” where she needed to be. 

She stayed in Florida, and that’s where this story could end. Then again, this story could have ended in 1978, when she crossed the finish line in Central Park for the very first time. Or in 1981, when she moved away from New York. Or in 1982, when she completed the race in just under 3 hours and 38 minutes, a personal best. But it didn’t. 

Long before dawn on November 3rd, more than a thousand miles from New York, two figures set out through the dark. 

By her own admission Brown is driven, in part, by a lingering fear in the back of her mind. “If I stop this, I don't know if I can start this again,” she said. “As long as I keep going, I can keep doing it.” 

And so, at two o’clock that morning, Brown started running with her friend, Beth, through the streets of Sarasota. They set off early in a bid to beat the heat. 

Asked why she chose to run 26.2 miles – without crowds, daylight, or the course she had come to know so well over the years – Brown laughed, as if this was a silly question. She trained. She was ready. And she wasn’t prepared to let that go to waste. “I couldn't not do it.” 

The pair started at Brown’s house, with “nice asphalt” underfoot, before reaching a main road. They had it to themselves, at such an early hour. Sunrise was a long way off.  

Eventually they made it to the lake in Nathan Benderson Park. Brown had known about the alligators, but not the snakes (“yuck”) when she swam in it for a triathlon last year. She nevertheless feels at peace running alongside the water. “You feel like you could just go forever.” 

Before long, they were on the home straight. Brown’s friend, Beth, was among a band of friends and neighbors who ensured that, although separated from the usual 50,000-strong field of fellow runners, she never felt alone.  

One put out oranges and water at mile seven; a few pulled up in a car about halfway with more oranges, water, and energy bars; and a small group joined for the final stretch. 

As she approached the finish, outside her house, more were waiting. Even her husband, Matt, made it out. Brown crossed the line just shy of 6 hours and 42 minutes. They had “a little party” over breakfast. 

When Brown spoke to The Footprint last month, she was hopeful 2025 would be a wonderful year. That day, she and Matt had been to see the doctor. He is responding well to treatment. 

Preparations are meanwhile underway for this year’s New York City Marathon. Brown “absolutely” plans to be there, for the 45th time.

Around and about

📸 On the run: Sunset along the reservoir in Central Park, New York, during the cold snap last month. (If you take a great photo during a run, please send it in…)

🗞️ Take it easy: Reseachers analyzed 16 weeks of training data for almost 120,000 marathon runners, recorded on Strava, for a recent study. The fastest tended to run more during training, as you might expect – but primarily increased their milage with easy runs, rather than running at higher intensity. Alex Hutchinson dug into the findings in his Sweat Science column for Outside.

🎧️ Give it time: Fiona O’Keefe was forced by injury to drop out of last summer’s Olympic Marathon in Paris. “I did have to just give it some time at first,” she told the For The Long Run podcast. Maybe we “don’t always acknowledge enough that it’s okay to take a minute when you have a setback,” she suggested, “and just really try to process it, and not force yourself immediately to be like, okay, ‘how do I turn this around right now?’.”

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Have a great weekend.

- Callum