LIHU‘E — Picking up a new hobby at age 47 isn’t necessarily uncommon, but developing that new hobby into a world-class ability is far more remarkable. Once Yvette LaVigne began running competitively in 1987, she continued on a journey that
LIHU‘E — Picking up a new hobby at age 47 isn’t necessarily uncommon, but developing that new hobby into a world-class ability is far more remarkable.
Once Yvette LaVigne began running competitively in 1987, she continued on a journey that has taken her around the globe as one of the top distance runners in the world.
It seems to have all started when her boyfriend at the time entered the couple into a race.
“I beat him,” she said. “After that, he said he created a monster.”
The scope of her travels has taken LaVigne from her home in Los Angeles, where she was born and still lives, to various dream locales like the Great Wall of China, the coast of Antarctica and down under to Australia. She has participated in the most prestigious marathons throughout the United States, as well as four World Games competitions on three continents.
On Saturday, LaVigne will be participating in the 30th Annual Ha‘ena to Hanalei 8-mile run/walk. It will be the first time she has entered a race on Kaua‘i, though she has been to the island before, thanks to Donna Schulze. The two met at the 1991 World Games in Finland and have been friends ever since.
Schulze, 86, of Kilauea, also a former marathoner, and LaVigne share an ideology of continued activity.
“Keep moving, but don’t move the finish line,” Schulze said.
During her marathon career from 1987 to 2002, LaVigne ran 23 marathons, winning her age division seven times and finishing second three times. She ran 33 half-marathons with 28 first-place finishes, four seconds and one third.
In 90 5K races, she claimed 78 division wins and was 25 for 28 in 10K races.
After running the Boston, New York, Chicago and other highly-regarded American marathons, LaVigne came to Honolulu in 1998, finishing second in her division. That was the final “standard” marathon she ran, then heading to Antarctica in 2000.
While the runners were expecting to run on the vast uninhabited land mass, race organizers thought the conditions were less than ideal for transporting everyone from the boat. So the participants organized their own route aboard the Russian freighter and mapped out a 422-lap course.
Her final full-length run was The Great Wall Marathon on May 25, 2002.
“I love that running enables you to travel and the people that you meet along the way,” she said.
Since that time, knee injury has stopped LaVigne from competing the same way she was used to, but it has allowed her to move on to other activities like swimming and race walking. While she continues to compete, it is no longer with others, but mostly with herself.
“It’s just good, I think, to set goals for yourself,” she said. “I am so pathetic” when it comes to her swimming and race walking results, she said, though her marathon results have set the bar quite high.
Now 70, LaVigne wants to continue to live as independently as possible. She says the key to that principle is a simple four-letter word: Move.
Saturday’s North Shore route will take LaVigne and all the participants along the coast for an 8-mile trek. She typically goes to the gym six days a week and has been using one of those days to walk eight to 10 miles in preparation for the Hanalei Canoe Club event.
The course will begin at the end of the road in Ha‘ena, head down the road and over the one-lane bridges into Hanalei, down Weke Road and finish at the Hanalei Pier.
Walkers will be starting at 6 a.m., runners at 7 a.m. Shuttles will be taking the runners and walkers to the end of the road beginning at 4:45 a.m.
The 5K run begins and ends at the Hanalei Pier, getting underway at 7 a.m.
The youth run will also begin at the Pier at 7 a.m.
An awards ceremony will take place at Hanalei Canoe Club at 9:30 a.m.
For more information, call 639-4048 or visit www.hanaleicanoeclub.com.
