Stephanie Cleere will be running in a neighborhood near you on Sunday.
A sommelier and the wine director/manager at Convivo Restaurant in the Santa Barbara Inn, Cleere is doing the USA Women’s Marathon virtually.
The marathon was scheduled in Palm Desert, but officials changed it to a virtual event because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cleere is essentially going door to door, to cover the 26.2 miles. She is starting and finishing at her residence on Verde Vista Drive.
“I routed my run on MapMyRun,” she said of the app that finds and creates routes for runners. “It took me a few attempts to get it right. It is still about .03 miles over, but I’m okay with that.”
She said the route is a collage of some of her favorite runs in Santa Barbara.
The route stretches from her residence to Foothill Road, up APS to Montecito on the first leg. She then will run along East Beach and the waterfront, through Shoreline Park, past Elings Park and onto Veronica Springs.
She’ll take Veronica Springs to Modoc Road and then Hollister Avenue before heading back to State Street. She’ll proceed to Las Positas and then through the Samarkand neighborhood to De La Vina Street. After a 2.2-mile section along De La Vina across to Chapala via West Islay, she’ll head to Alamar for the home stretch.
This is Cleere’s second marathon. She did the Chicago Marathon in 2019 and finished in just over four hours. She has a personal best of 1:40 for a half-marathon.
She feels better prepared entering Sunday’s 7 a.m. run through Santa Barbara, thanks to her trainer, Alex Ramirez.
“He honestly has helped make me so strong mentally and physically, she said. “I trained for Chicago by myself. I wish I had the assistance of Alex then.”
Ramirez was referred to her by a friend.
“She had worked with Alex, so I began training with him at the gym he was working at on San Andreas Street in January,” she said.
When the pandemic forced the closure of gyms in the state, Cleere said Ramirez stayed in touch with his clients.
“He truly stepped up for all of his ‘fitness family,’ to the point that he dropped weights he had at houses, so we could have something to use,” she said. “Then he decided to do Zoom classes soon after.”
Cleere noted that Ramirez recently launched his own business.
“I could not be happier knowing that I work with a trainer that I feel takes my whole well-being into account,” she said.
Sunday’s marathon has personal significance for Cleere. She’s doing it in remembrance of her mother, who passed away from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in April in upstate New York.
“I would like to raise awareness for this disease,” Cleere said. “The day of the run will be six months since her passing.”
She’s calling her run, “SCSB Breathe Free.”
“It incorporates my name, our beautiful city and what we all need right now: most importantly for runners and those that suffer from COPD, to breathe free,” she said.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.