marathon

marathonSunday marks the end of Amy Frazier's 52-week reign as a champion of the Buffalo Marathon. It's been a year she'll never forget. The East Amherst runner was the surprise winner of the women's race in 2010, taking the title in her very first marathon. She won't be at the starting line at 7 a.m. Sunday when this year's race begins, but that's only because she couldn't fit it into her schedule. "The reaction was really great," Frazier said about her year as a title-holder. "I think everyone I knew was a little surprised, but everyone was supportive. It was nice from that standpoint." After recording one of the biggest surprise victories in the history of the race, Frazier went as far away from Buffalo as possible: Australia. The graduate student from the University at Buffalo did some work at the University of Queensland. "


I continued my running there," Frazier said. "An Australian winter is not a Buffalo winter. It's in the 40s in the morning, and warms up later. It's a nice place to run." She came back to Western New York in the fall and continued to train despite not having any immediate goals. But she did have her sights set on entering one of the world's most famous races in the spring. "I had hopes to run the Boston Marathon in April," Frazier said. "The sign-up day was in October, and I needed to get in online. I had qualified for it through the Buffalo Marathon. "I got to the computer right at 9 o'clock. I tried to get my registration in, but it wasn't taking it. I tried all morning. I e-mailed a friend, and he said, 'Don't worry, it takes months to fill up the field.' Then when I went back to my computer around 6 [p.m.], I found that it was full."

marathon