Two Fla. women to run historic Athens Marathon for charity

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

MIAMI — Pheidippides died after running about 24 miles from Marathon, Greece, to Athens in 490 B.C.

On Nov. 4, a field of about 4,000 runners and walkers will commemorate the Athenian messenger in the Athens Marathon. Somewhere in that crowd will be Key Biscayne, Fla.’s Kathy Lubbers and Jeanne Cadwallader.

They’ll be walking the 26.2 miles, working their muscles while they help raise, hopefully, $50,000 for the Arthritis Foundation.

It’s a personal cause for Lubbers, 44, diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at age 25. “I woke up one morning and I could not lift the sheets,” she says. “It was so painful I thought I’d need a wheelchair the rest of my life.” She walks miles at a time around Key Biscayne several days a week with Cadwallader, 46, her neighbor for about seven years.