As Amanda Fazzari laces up her running shoes, she reflects back to 2016 and the first – and, to date, only – half-marathon she’s ever run.
Fazzari, an Illinois Wesleyan program alum and now the head coach at Trinity Christian College, completed that race, but had no plans of repeating the performance. “I thought those that ran [13.1 miles] twice were absolutely insane,” she says, her face set in a thoughtful expression.
In October, Fazzari will not only hit the pavement again, she will become one of the very people that she once dubbed as “insane.” She plans to run the Chicago Marathon as part of a fundraiser for an international charity called WorldVision.
WorldVision is an organization that describes itself as a “Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.” The organization utilizes various methods to provide clean, safe water to underprivileged nations and peoples. “World Vision is the largest non-governmental provider of clean water in the World. Last year we reached over 4.6 million new people with clean water,” according to the organization’s website.
Long-distance running is not Fazzari’s forte; she readily volunteers that information. “I definitely prefer high-intensity short distances,” she told JWOS in a phone interview. “The half-marathon was really just a bucket list thing, just to kind-of keep myself competitive [after college]and keep myself in shape.”
Despite her lack of affinity for the distance sports, the opportunity to do something for a good cause was something that Fazzari couldn’t pass up: “I signed up in May,” she said. “My church presented the idea of doing the marathon and I committed to running it because I thought it would be a good experience, but in June, when I took a trip to the Dominican Republic, it was really eye-opening and after that, my commitment to the marathon meant a little bit more.”
The trip to the Dominican Republic was Fazzari’s first venture to an underdeveloped nation. While on the trip, she experienced first-hand the country’s water issues and the vast need for clean, healthy water.
“They spoiled us in the fact that we had filtered water that we could use,” Fazzari recalls of her mission trip. “But even when we went to the school, you only had the water bottle that you filled up in the morning. And there were even times, I think it was most of the days that we were at the school, they didn’t even have running water at their school. So first hand, that’s kind of where I saw the need, and my heart went out to those that don’t have the things that we take for granted and advantage of every single day.”
After returning from the mission trip, Fazzari’s commitment to running the marathon was strengthened. “I’m not a distance runner; again, I joke that God made me so that I specialize in running sixty feet and turning left. But God had me engaged to at least commit, and after seeing just how the need was so great, running the marathon just meant more.”
While running a marathon may not be a regular thing for Fazzari, nor something that she plans to make a habit of, she has spent a healthy portion of her summer preparing for the endeavor. “In terms of the time commitment, that has been a bit of a struggle, but something that I knew I needed to commit to, because if I didn’t prepare for this properly, it was going to be really, really tough. Coming from a coach, you have to prepare for the show! The marathon is pretty much the victory lap, the World Series game… you have to prepare and get ready every single day for that.
“On top of that, though, it’s probably one of the most exhausting processes that I’ve ever been a part of, aside from being a first-year head coach. So I joke about that all the time. I’m like, ‘last year, being a head coach, that was so so hard,’ I think I was just so exhausted all the time. But now this is probably the second hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do… But I just keep reminding myself, the reason that I’m doing that, and once I cross the finish line, I’ll be super happy and remember that I did it for the right reasons.”
Fazzari and her church group have already raised more than 50% of their $250,000 fundraising goal for the marathon. While she has been nursing a stress fracture injury in her foot, quitting is not an option that the former all-conference middle infielder considers to be on the table: “Absolutely not,” Fazzari says matter-of-factly. “Just because of who I am; I think about the year of training that I’ve done thus far and I’m not going to give up. In talking to my athletic trainer, who diagnosed me with the stress fracture, I just said ‘whatever we need to do’. If I have to be in a boot after the marathon, then I’m fine with that. But bowing out of this is not an option.”
(The Chicago Marathon is set to take place on October 13; Fazzari’s fundraising page can be found here.)
