Eighteen-year-old Kate Mautz is starting to get a bit of pre-race jitters.
“But I know that no matter how the day turns out, I don't really want to lose sight of how grateful I am to have been able to participate in such an amazing and once-in-a-lifetime event,” she said.
That event is the Boston Marathon on April 17. Among the nearly 400 Granite Staters competing this year, Mautz is the youngest of the group. A recent graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, she’s taking a gap year before playing women’s lacrosse at Bowdoin College.
“I’ve really appreciated that I haven’t been viewed just for my age,” she said.
Mautz is running to raise money for Camp Shriver, a summer camp for kids aged 8 to 12. The organization, which is run by the University of Massachusetts Boston, focuses on fostering friendships between kids with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities, and serving low-income families from the Boston area.
“I believe creating those types of relationships and friendships can be really important at a young age,” Mautz said.
The organization has told Mautz she's their youngest sponsor ever. As of press time, she's raised more than $8,000, using fun ways to get her peers involved, like raffles on social media. She said she also called up local businesses across Exeter and convinced them to contribute gift cards from their stores for gift card basket raffles.
“Putting myself out there has been kind of a bit challenging for me, in a lot of ways — like fundraising, getting people my age to donate is definitely a task in itself,” she said. “I know that everyone has the best intentions and would want to donate, but it's hard to convince an 18-year-old to chip in some money to a charity when they might be feeling like they don't even have a lot of money for themselves at that time, too.”
Learning the art of fundraising and community outreach has been just one of many lessons she’s gained while preparing for the marathon.
Preparing for this race has also taught she can’t treat her own life like it’s a race.
She said she can get caught up in her own head, thinking about “what I have to do next week, or what’s going to happen next year, or what college is going to be like.”
But picking up long-distance running has helped her slow down — at least, when it comes to how she lives out her life.
“It really has grounded me in my days, and that’s something that I’ve really appreciated about running and have grown to love,” she said. “I can wake up and be like, ‘OK, today I'm going to get out there. I'm going to run my 10 miles. And this is what I can do and what I'm doing.’ ”
Come race day, Mautz has a game plan: She’ll have her usual pre-run snack of Annie’s graham crackers and a banana with almond butter. She’ll listen to music for a large chunk of the race, but she says she’ll take them out when she hits hills in the marathon — including the notoriously difficult Heartbreak Hill in Newton, Massachusetts.
“I think that being a part of the fans and the environment is a really cool opportunity, and I don't want to muffle that or mute that in any way,” she said.
