Norwin teacher smiled her way through Boston Marathon

Norwin High School math teacher Angela Knipple doesn’t shy away from mental or physical challenges, and likes to run long distances, so it seems only fitting that she combined the two and took on the legendary Boston Marathon.

Not only did Knipple finish the rainy Boston Marathon on April 17, but she also achieved her goal of running the 26.2 miles in under four hours — 3 hours, 51 minutes and 42 seconds. The Boston Athletic Association, sponsor of the marathon, clocked her splits — her average time per mile — at 8 minutes, 51 seconds.

Why run in the Boston Marathon when there are others closer to home?

“It’s the pinnacle of marathons,” Knipple said after returning home and to the classroom where she has taught for 21 years.

The 42-year-old Greensburg resident said she smiled “all the way down to the finish line.”

Knipple has a picture to prove that because a photographer captured a shot Knipple with her arms raised in celebration and a smile across her face as she crossed the finish line, despite putting her body through the rigors of pounding the pavement through Boston neighborhoods and fighting stiffening muscles because of the rain.

“I was happy, and I felt strong,” Knipple said.

Strong enough to continue running when her quadricep muscles in her upper legs tightened up in the cold rain.

”I ran my ‘usual self-scan protocol’… the one that says ‘Are we going to die? How bad is this? It’s just pain for a few minutes’… When you’re a runner for so long you have your own ways of dealing with anything and everything you experience in a race,” Knipple said.

It helped that she got support along the way from her husband, Doug, and a few close friends, who were along the route of the race. Her husband also provided assistance during her long training runs in preparation for the marathon, Knipple said.

She, along with the other 26,970 runners in the race, also got the support of the thousands of spectators who lined the route.

“There was so much electricity (from the crowd). It made the hair on my arms stand up,” Knipple said.

She said she really felt it at the point of the race called Heartbreak Hill, a series of four hills in the town of Newton, at around mile 17.

Before she could even get to the starting line at Boston, Knipple had to post a qualifying time at another marathon. In her age group of 40-to-44, Knipple qualified for the Boston Marathon by running the Cleveland Marathon on a hot day in May 2022 in 3 hours, 39 minutes and 24 seconds.

“I just made the cut,” which was 3 hours, 40 minutes, Knipple said.

Running the Boston Marathon was not an activity Knipple had in mind when she was a student at Greater Latrobe Area High School, where she played tennis, basketball and softball, but not cross-country or track. Nor did she run while a student at Saint Vincent College.

She began running about 10 years ago, starting out as many do with community races that are 3.2 miles in length, advancing to the 10-kilometer, or 6.2 miles. She ran a half-marathon along the Five Star Trail in Greensburg several years ago. She met a woman while on vacation who participated in Iron Man races — the long distance races involving running, swimming and bicycling.

It got her thinking that she could run a marathon and now she is doing it.

She does not have another marathon on her immediate radar. She does not plan to run in the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 7 this year, as her body needs time to recover from Boston.

“I’ll be cheering a lot of friends — a lot of Norwin teachers — who will be running it,” Knipple said.