AUBURN – After pounding the pavement for the past five months, Rebecca Hefty can’t wait until the exhausting, 26.2-mile jaunt from Hopkinton, Mass., to downtown Boston comes to an abrupt end – and she can finally get on with her life.

Hefty, 33, teaches school, raises a family, and coaches a track team, but despite her stressful schedule, she somehow found what precious little time she could spare to train for the Boston Marathon.

The Edward Little High School physical education teacher and girls’ track coach can honestly say that she feels more than a tinge of trepidation when she thinks about going the distance in this prestigious event.

“I’m numb. I am scared. I am very nervous,” said Hefty, as she oversaw an EL track practice last Wednesday.

But why?

“26 miles,” Hefty said. “I am scared because people talk about Heartbreak Hill. I get emotional thinking about it.

“I look forward to seeing the finish line and crossing it.”

Something new

Hefty, a Wisconsin native, decided running was the best way to stay in shape, despite her more pressing obligations as a mother of two children, Emma and Brooks, and a teacher.

“I’ve never been a distance runner,” Hefty said. “I was always a sprinter in high school and a hurdler. I started doing the races right after my daughter was born because running seemed to be the easiest and the less time-consuming thing to do as a parent.

“I tried going to the gym, and it’s hard because I didn’t have the time … so I started picking up running. And I am not great at it, but I can do it because I can get mentally through it.”

She ran a half marathon twice in Portland, but Hefty felt she wanted to try a more challenging course, so she began mulling over competing in a major event.

“I was just online in October, and I opened up the Boston Marathon, and I had thought about that or New York or Chicago,” said Hefty, who hopes to finish the course in under five hours. “For the heck of it, why not try. I started looking and looking at qualifying, and then I heard about charities.”

A run for the money

Hefty soon discovered that finding a charity to run for in the Boston Marathon was just as difficult as all the hours she was putting in to train for the race.

She was hoping to run for an organization that would benefit her 4-year-old niece, Evie, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder. The child was born without irises and had a cancerous tumor removed from her kidney.

“She is striving right now,” Hefty said. “So anyway, I don’t live at home. I don’t live anywhere near Madison (Wisconsin).

“The only thing we can do to help is go back for Relay for Life. I thought I could do something in running for her.”

But finding a benevolent organization that supports children like her niece was impossible, so the EL track coach began checking out other charities that still sought applicants to run in the marathon.

“I started applying for charities like the Children’s Hospital in Boston, and they filled up like within five days,” Hefty said. “Well, I clicked on a charity called Good Sports (www.goodsports.org).”

The institution is active in the suburbs of Boston, providing surrounding communities with sports equipment, facilities, money and uniforms to children who participate in athletics.

“What they do is they raise money to help kids get active, which is right up my alley,” she said. “It is not in this area, but it is something I strongly believe in. So I applied on a complete crapshoot.

“Hundreds of people apply for charities, and I was like there’s no way am I going to get it. I got an e-mail and interview and got accepted two weeks later.

“Then I was, ‘Oh no, I gotta really do this.'”

Hefty has raised $2,875.00 for Good Sports.

Strong support system

Hefty considers herself fortunate that her husband, Michael, a competitive athlete and a coach at Lewiston High, has played a big role in her training.

“He has been a rock for me, because there has been days where I couldn’t do it or come home crying because my first 17-miler outside I just thought I was going to die,” she said. “I have also been fortunate to have the closeness of the girls.

“Some of my distance runners trained with me in the offseason. Some of my kids have been really motivating.”

Jaime Russell, a 17-year-old EL distance and cross country runner, covered 10 of Hefty’s 20-mile training run, with her coach. She will be on hand, along with several other EL runners, to cheer on their coach in Beantown.

“I think that it shows a lot of commitment to running, deciding to do something and follow it through,” Russell said of her dedicated mentor. “I can respect it a lot. I wish I could do it (Boston Marathon) with her. I think it’s awesome, and that feeling when she gets done is so worth it.”

Russell does have some advice for her coach when the going gets tough, and Heartbreak Hill tests Hefty’s determination: “Just think positive, and your goal is to finish. Think strong and be strong, and run strong.”

But Hefty won’t have to go it alone for most of the race. Her husband will join her at Mile 4 and run with her until Mile 17, when one of her former athletes, Kelsey Pettengill, will take over and tag along with Hefty for the remainder of the marathon.

“I know that if there is a marathon you ever want to run for your first time, Boston is it,” Hefty said. “I know that it is the people and the colleges and the motivation and inspiration you get from running (it) is phenomenal.

“I don’t know if you could ever say you are looking forward to it, but I am just ready for the experience.

“Will I do it again? Ask me next Tuesday.”