STANDISH, Maine — Standish native Emily Durgin will make her marathon debut in New York City in November among a star-studded field of elite runners.
Durgin is a professional runner who now lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. She graduated from Cheverus High School in 2012 and earned a full-ride track scholarship to the University of Connecticut.
Here's the twist: Durgin has never run a marathon before. Not as a professional, not as an amateur.
"I've never even run 26 miles in my life straight," Durgin said. "I'm super excited. When I decided that I wanted to run a marathon, New York always stood out to me as where I wanted to debut."
Durgin is, however, hitting her stride: literally.
In January, she had a personal best time in the half marathon, 67 minutes and 54 seconds. Of her top 10 personal best finishes, five came in 2022 alone, including the TD Beach to Beacon 10K.
"My goal was just to be competitive and be in the front group. I didn't think I was going to be leading the race," Durgin said in a post-race interview with NEWS CENTER Maine on Saturday.
That's because she got into Portland just eight hours before she needed to be on a bus to the starting line.
A cancelled flight in Philadelphia meant renting a car at 3 a.m. Friday and driving the rest of the way. All that sitting for a woman whose livelihood depends on her body's performance, not to mention the time pressure to get home, gave her a little anxiety.
"I sat in a car. Didn't run all Friday. Went to bed, had to wake up, and I was like, 'Welp, it is what it is!'" Durgin said. "What made it very comforting is that I was coming home."
She is very familiar with the Beach to Beacon. She has run it so many times she has lost count. Maine is home, even though she now lives in Flagstaff, training with other elite runners. The high altitude makes it a great place to train to build up lung capacity and recovery ability, making races at lower elevations feel easier.
Before she moved to Flagstaff, she was training with pros on the New Balance Boston team, and nannying to make ends meet to get to Arizona.
"I mapped it all out how much I had to make a week to pay rent so that I could take a year to see if I could get good enough," Durgin said.
Before she dedicated her life to running, she was a dancer.
"That was my first true love. I thought I was going to be on Broadway or something," she said.
A love she had to sacrifice in middle school in order to become an elite runner.
"I always knew I was doing the right thing to get me where I wanted to be," she said.
Durgin has her sights set on making Team USA in 2024 to compete in Paris.
"I'm a lot more confident on the roads, so that's why I think my best bet for making an Olympic team will be on the road in the marathon," she said. "It would be incredible, but I don't define myself on making an Olympic team."
She says that her friends and teammates in the running community have made multiple Olympic teams, but come back after the games with added pressure.
"They feel every time they run a race their name is in bold letters because they're an Olympian. Obviously, it's great pressure to have, it it's kind of nice — in some ways, I'm still an underdog," she said. "You can always want to improve and get better. My coaches say 'you have the crazy gene.' You have to have that to be a good athlete, but I think it's really important to also be proud of where you've started and how far you've come."
Emily's next race is the Twin Cities 10-mile in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
