At The Vermont City Marathon, A Young Runner Proves Herself
At the finish line, Lila Carleton was exhausted, and elated. Photo by John Dillon for VPR
Among the thousands of runners in Sunday’s Vermont City Marathon, one competitor stood out, not for the swiftness of her time, but because she was the youngest runner in the field.
Lila Carleton is 15, just a few months shy of her 16th birthday. Race organizers say you have to be 16 to enter. But the young woman made her case to the marathon board, and they let her in.
The decision was not made lightly. Runners and medical professionals have serious concerns about the toll distance running can take on a young person’s body.
The fact that everyone in the race was older than her didn’t faze Lila Carleton. Indeed, little seems to faze the Huntington high school sophomore. She Nordic skis at Champlain Valley Union, and has run track and cross country. But she started distance running on her own, and slowly built up to 26 miles without a formal program.