Kirsten Heckert packs a lot into a day. And it starts early. Insanely early.
Her first of three alarms goes off at 3:50 a.m. on weekdays. She has the others set to go off at 3:52 and 3:54, and then she drags herself out of bed by 4 a.m.
“I’m not super great at waking up in the morning,” she said.
That’s an understatement, according to her husband and coach, Michael Lucchesi. “[The alarms] drive me nuts,” he said.
Heckert, 30, is out the door by 4:25 for her 30-minute drive to Plainfield South High School in Plainfield, Illinois, a suburb about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. She brings with her a breakfast and lunch Lucchesi packs for her the night before.
There, she meets a friend, another teacher who’s an Ironman triathlete, and they’ll run for an hour on the sidewalks and neighborhoods around the school. They’ll get maybe eight miles, then Heckert heads inside for a quick shower and a granola bar while she’s walking to her first-period classroom.
She’s got three classes of freshmen taking Algebra I and two classes of juniors and seniors taking precalculus.
School ends at 2:10, and Heckert is one of two coaches of the boys’ cross-country team at Plainfield South, so she usually gets a few miles in with them. When practice ends at 5 p.m., she gets another hour or more of running in. Then it’s home, dinner, grading tests and quizzes, and lesson planning. She tries to be in bed by 9 p.m. to get at least seven hours of sleep.
On weekends, she’ll fit her miles in around her team’s races and she gets in a long run. She’ll also nap. “Usually I can get an hour in, which is amazing,” she said.
The routine has paid dividends the last several years. Heckert ran her first marathon in 2011 in Chicago in 2:51. She has trimmed a few minutes off her time almost every race since, and last year she was 15th at Chicago in her PR of 2:39:37.
Her husband says the early morning wakeup calls and the high mileage have made her a force to be reckoned with. “She is by far the least talented athlete in this field, but I would put her mind against anyone’s,” he said. “She is tough as nails.”
Related: These Are the World’s Fastest Marathoners
The routine might seem impossible, but she urges people to assess what they want to accomplish and make it work. “You have time to do whatever it is that you find important in your life,” she said. “If running a marathon is really important to you, you’ll find the time. If you’re having a hard time getting up or getting motivated, finding a group is one of the best things you can do. You have someone else to hold you accountable. That’s what I have to do—I have friends that are in the same boat as me.”
Sunday, she’s hoping for another PR. And maybe if she’s lucky, an afternoon nap.
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World Races - Places, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
