CT’s top female finisher at the Boston Marathon combines love of horses, running

She was inspired to run her first marathon after watching Des Linden win at Boston in miserably cold, wet conditions in 2018.

“It had always been in my head to run a marathon,” she said. “They run (the) Vermont City (Marathon) where I grew up and I had run it as part of a relay. I wanted to run the full distance, but I was never sure how to navigate the training in this lifestyle.

“I decided I’m going to figure out how to do it.”

She ran the 2018 Philadelphia Marathon and finished in 3:22:27, qualifying for the 2020 Boston Marathon. But Boston was postponed due to the pandemic and that June, Romond fell off a horse and landed hard on her feet, rupturing ACLs in both knees.

“I had to go to a few surgeons to find someone who would do them both at the same time,” she said.

She had surgery July 1 and didn’t run again until April 2021. At that point, Boston had been postponed again, to October of 2021.

“I cycled all that winter and I was a physical therapy beast,” she said. “So I wasn’t starting from nothing. I wasn’t sure how the running was going to go. My surgeon was not optimistic about how it was going to go in that timeframe or in general.”

Yet Romond made it to the start line in Hopkinton in October.

“I was emotional at the start because I got to that point,” she said. “When I knew I was going to make it, it was pure elation; that was at the top of Heartbreak Hill. That was a peak marathon experience.”

Now her marathon training is just part of her schedule.

“I’m on a horse between 5:30 and 6 in the morning, so it doesn’t work for me to do my runs at the end of the day after that kind of day,” she said. “Once I figured out just getting up early worked better, that’s been my routine. I go to bed really early.”

Last fall, Romond was the women’s winner of the Faxon New Haven Road Race half marathon in 1:19:05, her personal best half time. She enlisted a running coach over the winter and trained better and more efficiently and had a four-minute PR last Monday in Boston.

The horses and trainers at Heritage Farm returned from the Florida show circuit a few weeks ago and now everyone at the barn is preparing for the spring show season, which starts in a few weeks.

Romond said the running has helped her stamina and fitness when she’s riding, although if she’s run a longer training distance, sometimes her first horse of the day can be a little tough on the legs.

“The first horse needs to be not too cold, not too hot and definitely not spooky,” she said. “Once I get my legs under me, I’m good.”

And riding or running: Which does she like better?

“That’s not a fair question,” she said. “Riding is the sport when I’m doing it, I’m not thinking about anything else. You’re thinking about how you’re feeling with your horse so it’s clearing my mind.

“Running is my chance to be in my head. I spend a lot of time when I’m running thinking about horses.”