GNS Teacher Achieves Lifetime Goal by Running Boston Marathon

April 29, 2022

Academics

GNS

Congratulations to Ms. Erin Sask who recently completed the 2022 Boston Marathon. Ms. Sask, who teaches Senior School Math, completed the 42 kilometre marathon with a time of 3:25.03.

“It was incredible,” she said. “It was such a big dream for a long time. It’s just so inspiring seeing people from all over the world and people of all ages.”

On her first day back at GNS, Ms. Sask told her Grade 10 class all about her Boston Marathon experience. This was a moment that resonated with her as when she was in Grade 10, her English teacher would come back every year after the Boston Marathon and tell the class how it went.

“That’s what I think it’s about. It’s about inspiring other people that have goals and dreams to do things they are capable of,” she said. “I thought it was kind of ironic that I was telling my Grade 10s that why I did it was because my teacher did it, so maybe one of those students will be inspired to do something like that.”

Her path to the Boston Marathon began after she had her oldest son. She wanted to start running again, and since she had previously participated in two marathons, she decided to try another and applied to be in the New York City Marathon the same year she started at GNS.

“On a whim, I just applied to the 2019 New York City Marathon. I don’t remember how or why, but I wanted to see if I’d get in, and I did,” she explained. “I set that intention and ran it. I knew I wanted to qualify for Boston at that point, so I ran fast enough to qualify.”

She was supposed to participate in the Boston Marathon in 2020, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was cancelled.

“I started training in January of last year trying to get back into running and fitness after having my second child,” Ms. Sask said. “I did a 35 kilometre run with my friends who were running 100 kilometres to raise money. Running is just an amazing community of people.”

Ms. Sask ran her first race when she was in Grade 1 and started training with a club when she was 16 years old. She has continued since then, even helping to train students at GNS as she is one of the Senior School Track and Field coaches. Finishing the 126th Boston Marathon was a lifetime goal of hers.

“It was a long time dream coming true. It was very cool,” she said. “When you get older time really is faster, when it came to the end of the weekend I was like ‘is it done already?’ Even while I was running I was like ‘don’t forget about this moment!’”