The penguins came into view as Toni Casselberry ran through green rows of Iowa cornfields about a quarter of the way into the Music Man Marathon near Mason City.
At least she thought they were penguins. And Casselberry is one of the few people who has actually run past penguins in the wild, having completed a race in Antarctica as part of her goal to run a marathon on all seven continents.
As she trotted closer, however, she realized the penguins were singing, and that they weren’t penguins at all. Rather, a choir of nuns had gathered to galvanize suffering runners by offering snacks and singing tunes from “Sister Act,” which Casselberry happened to have performed two weeks prior as a member of the cast of Santa Cruz Follies. So of course she had to join in to belt out a line or two before setting off to finish the remaining 18 or so miles of her run.
That was No. 29 on Casselberry’s journey to run a marathon in all 50 states. When a person runs that many marathons, it might seem like the memories would eventually bleed together. Not for Casselberry, who can remember some of the smallest details of each run and will be able to regale friends with them Saturday, when they celebrate Antoinette Marie Casselberry Day in Santa Cruz County.
“We will proclaim it’s her day,” said Ryan Coonerty, the Third District Supervisor who proposed the honor. “I wish it meant she wouldn’t get a parking ticket or have to pay property taxes or something, but mostly it’s recognition of the person and, in a small way, a way to say thank you to her.”
Coonerty said he made a motion to name the day after Casselberry not just to recognize her running feats, but also her contributions to charity. Casselberry has been involved in the follies the past eight years, and has also worked locally with Casa and Holy Cross Catholic Church. In addition, she used many of her runs to raise money for charities.
The Iowa run, for example, raised money for Catholic high schools, hence the nuns.
Casselberry, a dental assistant who lives in Bonny Doon, finished off states Nos. 48, 49 and 50 during the last two weeks of May. She started that final push with 12 miserable out-and-back laps in the cold and rain Sanford, Maine, and followed that with a similar, but warmer, course three days later in Florence, Mass. The accomplishment she unwittingly began in 1978 culminated in Lincoln, R.I., on May 18 with 16 out-and-back laps along a paved bike path.
“I thought I was going to have postpartum,” Casselberry said. “But now I can go out and party like everyone else. I felt like, ‘I’m free!’”
Casselberry didn’t intend to set off to run around the world or around the country when she signed up for her first marathon, the Avenue of the Giants, in 1978. Instead, she was looking for a way to grieve the passing of two monumental figures in her life who had died within a month of each other: her grandmother and Elvis. She said she started to become depressed and “didn’t like the way my skin feels.” The endorphins and the friends she got from running kept that feeling at bay.
So, Casselberry began running more races in more places. In 2007, she ran a marathon in Dublin, Ireland. Shortly after finishing, she noticed a booth for Marathon Tours had a flyer on Antarctica that, of course, featured penguins. She signed up for the race that night.
That kickstarted her seven-continent tour that also took Casselberry to Madagascar (Africa), the Arctic Circle (Europe), Australia (Oceania), Easter Island (South America) and Turkey (Asia). She completed that goal in 2012.
Then she kept going.
“I had wisecracking friends. They said, ‘What are you going to do now?’” Casselberry recalled. “I said, ‘I’m going to be a normal person.’ They said, ‘Why? You’ve already done 15 marathons in the states.’ They said, ‘Do all 50 states!’
“I said, ‘OK.’”
That has been Casselberry’s mission ever since. The most she’s done, she said, is 13 in 10 months. Many of them, like her final three, she completed through a company called Mainly Marathons, which sets up courses for people who mostly just want to get the mileage in and have their times and distances be official. She also ran more traditional races, however, like the Chicago Marathon. Her least favorite was Kansas (“28 degrees and a lot of confederate flags”) and one of her favorites was Hawaii. She completed that race in Kauai with the help of a toad that glommed onto the toe of her shoe early in the race.
Casselberry said she generally maintains about an 8- to 9-minute mile pace, though she said she has gotten the “caboose award” once in New Mexico for being the last runner on course.
“I used to (worry about it) but I’m at the point where it’s just finish line for me,” she said. “When you do 80 miles in five days ….”
Those days are over, but the adventures are not. Casselberry’s first post-50 states excursion will be to climb Machu Picchu. She also has eyed in marathons in Tasmania, New Zealand and Loch Ness. One thing she’s not doing, however, is starting another series.
“Now people say to me, ‘What are you going to do now that I don’t have any goals? You should do all the countries!” Casselberry said, shaking her head.
“I put my foot down.”
Contact Julie Jag at 831-706-3257.