Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 15, 1995 TAG: 9504170045
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
"I just decided I wanted to go out for the track team in seventh grade and I've been running ever since," she said.
She will be running Monday in the Boston Marathon with the hospital as her sponsor.
Pulaski Community has been stressing wellness and prevention of health problems, and Riblett's running serves as an example. "I'm just glad that I can be an advocate and a representative for our hospital," Riblett said.
She ran competitively in junior high and high school, and set records at the University of Delaware in relay, 800-meter, 1,000-meter and 1,500-meter events.
"I was always a distance runner," she said. "Rather than being in sororities, that was kind of my sorority."
She began working as a dietitian at the Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in North Carolina. She came here as dietitian Feb. 24, 1994.
Riblett said she's always wanted to be in a marathon and took part in the annual Marine Corps Marathon at Quantico last fall.
"And that was how I qualified for Boston," she said. "I wasn't even trying to qualify. I was just trying to finish."
She finished the 26.2 miles in three hours and 38 minutes, among the first 2,600 in a pack of more than 16,000 runners. Those who made it within three hours and 40 minutes qualified for Boston.
Pulaski County High School football coach Joel Hicks ran the Boston Marathon several years ago, and heard that someone at the hospital was gearing up for it this year. Hicks, who wants to try to qualify for Boston in 1996, got in touch with Riblett and has been helping her train on weekends.
She has also been getting help at the Pulaski YMCA where she works out with weights as part of her conditioning. Diet is a factor, too, she said.
"You just gradually increase your mileage while trying to get the rest and the carbohydrates you need to fuel yourself and get the energy that you need," she said. "I'd say that I've averaged about 50 miles a week."
Even when not training, she runs about four miles at her home in Christiansburg each morning - "Rather than the coffee, I can use a good run" - and seven to eight miles in the evenings at the Pulaski Y.
Already she is looking beyond Monday.
"I would like to qualify again next year for the Boston, because that's their 100th anniversary," she said. "But, you know, I'm going into it with the attitude that I just want to have fun. ... If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen."
by CNB