Daphne Brown finished the Royal Victoria Marathon last weekend in four hours and eight minutes. It was her first marathon, although she has been doing half marathons for nearly 10 years. There probably aren’t any training books that suggest starting out the way Brown did. She decided to try for a half marathon after the birth of her first daughter, Jessica, who is now 10.

“I lived out at White Lake. I trained for my first half-marathon pushing her in a stroller. It was easy and cheap, she got fresh air and I didn’t have to get a baby-sitter.”

Brown lives an active lifestyle. She is a member and one of the founders of the Shuswap Association for Rowing and Paddling.  She swims with the masters swim club and skis in the winter.

Brown says her husband, Cam, was “very supportive” through the whole process. But Brown has a family and couldn’t afford to take time away from their three daughters: Jessica, 10, Julia, 8, and Talia, 5. She instead, sacrificed time on her pillow.

“At 4:50 the alarm goes off. I’d run from five to seven. I have three kids and I have to be home to get them to school.”

The early mornings weren’t a shock to her system, though. In the summer Brown was on the water with the rowing club by 5:30 a.m. But she laughs when she says it’s not quite as easy to get out the door now that the mornings are darker.

“It isn’t as pleasant as it is in the summer.”

The big day eventually came. Brown says the beginning of the race was very exciting.

“That was the best part. You’re kind of nervous. Then they started to play the national anthem. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Then everyone started singing.”

There were 4,000 other runners taking part in the full marathon. Those who were in the half marathon, which included a number of people from Salmon Arm, had started an hour earlier.

The gun for the full marathon went off at 8:30 a.m. Brown, along with Laura Hepburn, began the 42.2 kilometre run.

“It was easy. At 36 kilometres I was loving life. But at 38 kilometres my legs turned into bricks. I could see people crying, limping, going off on stretchers and I wasn’t going there,” she says emphatically. “It didn’t hurt, it was just like lead and my time slowed down. The emotional highs and lows are incredible.”

Brown says that’s the point of the course which is filled with motivational signs: “Dig deep,” and “You trained for this” or something practical like, “Stamp your feet.”

Brown says she is not allowing herself to be disappointed with her time of 4:08, which was slightly over the mark to qualify her for the Boston Marathon. (Hepburn’s time of three hours 35 minutes did qualify to go to Boston).

When Brown came across the finish line there wasn’t so much a feeling of jubilation or triumph, just reality.

She says her thought was, “I’ve got to sit down.”

Brown plans on making it to the Boston Marathon eventually. She laughs as she says if she waits a few years to get into a higher age bracket, you’re allowed a little more time. She says adding a few years and taking a few minutes off her time is all she needs.

Also listed in the marathon results from Salmon Arm are Trevor Wallensteen and Erin Coffey, Wallensteen with a time of three hours, 49 minutes and Coffey with four hours, 32 minutes.

Running a marathon might seem like an unreachable goal to most people, but Brown, who is a chiropractor, doesn’t take much in the way of excuses, especially the popular excuse: “I’m too busy.”

“Unless you’re injured, anyone who wants to could probably do it. You can’t look at the big picture – go day by day.”