Getting ready for the 26.2-mile run

Emily Roller and Bill Troy, teachers and coaches at Cushing Academy, prepare to run the Boston Marathon on Monday to help raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Center. Journal Photo/Caitlyn Kelleher

The two Cushing teachers are watching the weather forecast for Monday with a careful eye. They are hoping that the storm blows by or stalls for a day, as they don't want to spend four hours running in the rain.

"You want it a little cool and a little overcast," said Emily Roller, who will be hitting the road with Bill Troy for the Boston Marathon.

Roller is a math teacher at Cushing Academy as well as the head coach of the girls' basketball team and the girls' lacrosse team.

They are both running as part of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute team.

"I've never had rain," Troy said as he faces his eighth run. "I've had warm and I've had cold."

Roller said she will run if the weather is bad but she prefers the warm weather.

The pair is each following a training regiment suggested by Dana-Farber, which was created by Jack Flotz, the winner of the 1996 marathon winner.

Roller is running in her fourth marathon and her second Boston Marathon. She started running because her best friend wanted to run in a marathon after donating a kidney to her sister who was suffering from polycystic kidney disease.

"How do I not run that marathon?" she said.

She then ran the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C. in memory of those who died on Sept. 11.

She said the Boston Marathon is a different feeling because of the crowd.

"There is somebody every step of the way," she said.

There is a group of women from Wellesley College at the Scream Tunnel, the guys from Boston College come out and cheer, and at mile 25 the patients from the pediatrics program at Dana-Farber stand to cheer.

"Suddenly, I'm not tired anymore," she said of after seeing the crowd.

The pair each agrees that the last 1.2 miles can be very long. But they said that training in Ashburnham has helped because there are so many hills.

Troy said he'll keep running during the offseason. He'll only do five or six miles, but he'll run more days a week.

Roller on the other hand will take up her training for the upcoming triathlon, saying it's easier on her knees.