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Mieko to race in Saipan Marathon
Former Saipan resident Mieko Carey will be back on island next week to join the half marathon event in the 2019 Saipan Marathon.
“I want to enjoy racing on Saipan again. This will be my first big race since I gave birth to my twins—Sota and Sora,” said Carey, who left Saipan in 2014 and is now based in Guam.
When Carey competed in the half marathon in 2009, she was the first overall female finisher of the 21.09K race after clocking in at 1:34:54. Ten years later and with two kids and limited training time, she is not putting too much pressure on her shoulder when she competes in the March 9 event.
“If I make under 1:40:00, then I will be happy. More than getting a good time, I am just super excited to come back, bring my twins, and show them to my Saipan friends,” she said. “It will be more challenging to bring them to Saipan all by myself than do the race.”
The triathlete gave birth in May last year and has been back to training for only a few months. Her training regimen is also very different now compared to when she was very active in triathlon thus she won’t be able to make it to the 30th Tagaman Triathlon, which will also be held this month.
“Unfortunately, I could not join Tagaman. It’s been hard to find time to train for three events after I gave birth,” Carey said.
“My training is much different now. Babies come first. I wake up at 4am, then go run and come back before 6am to prepare their breakfast. I then drop them to daycare and I go to work. Once the day starts, I don’t want to train because I want to be with our twins,” the former Tagaman and XTERRA Saipan champion said.
Carey is one of the more than 700 runners competing in next Saturday’s Saipan Marathon, which features the 42.1K race and also has a 10K event. The Marianas Visitors Authority’s signature event will start and end at the American Memorial Park with the marathon kicking off at 4:30am and the half and 10K races beginning at 5:30am and 6:30am, respectively.
