Walpole’s Heidi Westover to Race in China
By Chuck Bingaman
Heidi Westover of Walpole, one of the nation’s elite distance runners, is adding a few more pages to her already bulging scrapbook of achievements!
She’s been invited to represent the USA in the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in Nanning, China next month. AND, she’ll be featured on the November cover of Running Times magazine as an outstanding athlete who also holds down a full-time job—5th grade teacher at North Charlestown Community School.
“My class and I are very excited about my going to China,” Westover said yesterday. “I learned about being chosen for the USA team earlier this year than last, so we’ve had more time to look up information on China and the city of Nanning and really incorporate them into what I am teaching this fall.”
“When I came in the morning after I got the call that I had been chosen for the USA team, the students all cheered and asked if we could research China and where I was going. They even asked to learn Chinese!”
Westover, 29, grew up in Acworth and graduated from Fall Mountain Regional High School before putting together a stellar college running record at University of Rhode Island, won the Vermont City Marathon in 2009 and 2010 and was 18th among the women at last year’s Boston Marathon. She also represented the USA in the 2009 Half Marathon World Championships—a mere 13+ miles—held last year in Birmingham, England.
Westover was one of five American women chosen for the USA Team in the Half-Marathon Championships in China and will leave for that race at 6:00 a.m. Monday, October 11 with the actual race at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 16—8:30 p.m. Friday evening the 15th here in New Hampshire. Selection for the team was on the basis of performances in other races this year. Teams from many other countries will also be competing in Nanning. Unlike most of Westover’s marathon races where thousands of men and women race at the same time, the IAAF World Marathon Championships separate the men and women, and Westover expects about 60 of the world’s top women runners in her race.
In her day job, Westover teaches all subjects in 5th grade and supplements them with a daily one-mile walk with the entire class. “Last year,” she proudly reports, “every one of my 22 students walked at least 100 miles, and some walked over 150!”
North Charlestown principal Paula Southard-Stevens emphasized yesterday that “the kids always come first with Heidi, and she always ties in her racing with her curriculum. She’s a hometown hero, and we support her all we can.”
Walking at school is, of course, in addition to Westover’s daily routine of running 15-20 miles indoors on a treadmill in the morning and 10 or more in the afternoon in the hills of Walpole, Alstead, Langdon and Acworth with Fall Mountain track coach Larry Sayers. “I use the time running to think about the day’s lessons ahead, and I’ve come up with some pretty neat ideas while running,” says Westover. “The weekends I do long runs of 20-30 miles and I use that time to reflect on the previous week and to plan for the one ahead. Last week I ran 180 miles, and I started doing workouts on the track to work on my speed.”
When Westover arrives in Nanning, she will find it to be ancient city that has now grown to a quite modern place with shining skyscrapers and a population of nearly 6.5 million people—more than Chicago. It is near the southern border of China in a sub-tropical climate with warm, humid weather and a lot of rain. “My students have enjoyed learning about Nanning,” Westover noted, “and we have been looking into China’s school systems, jobs, population, and other interesting facts. We’ve also been reading “The Paper Dragon” by Marguerite W. Davol, a story set in China. And I will continue to build China into my curriculum.”
Excitement levels are building in North Charlestown. “Some of my students,” Westover chuckled, “have offered to go with me as my 'carry-ons'!”
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