Several members of the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra and the group's director competed alongside members of the Dartmouth Endurance Racing Team in the event.
The Endurance Racing Team sent two separate squads to Burlington to compete in the marathon, running it as a five-leg relay. Dartmouth's A team finished in eighth place in the mixed division and 36th overall in the team portion while the B team finished in 11th place out of 88 women's squads.
Liz Werley-Prieto '09, Carina Serreze '09, Brian Howe '10 and Steven Wang '11, from the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, finished 36th in the mixed division.
Dartmouth Endurance Racing's A team was comprised of team president Emily Koepsell '09, graduate student and team vice president Dane Cooper, Jude Chiy '10 and Lindsey Fitzgerald '11.
The B team competed in the women's division and was made up of Amy McLuskie '11, Anna Weingart '12 and Natalie Burkhard '12.
Some runners ran multiple legs for the Endurance Racing Team. For example, because the first leg of the race was relatively short 3.1 miles Koepsell combined it with the second segment, for a total of 8.7 miles.
Although Cooper said the B team did not enter the race expecting to place particularly high, Cooper said, the squad finished with a time of 3:35:43, good for 11th place in its division.
"They were ecstatic," Cooper said of the B team. "I think they were just in it to have fun and get some mileage in, but they ended up doing really well, so we were really happy for them."
Dartmouth's mixed division team did even better, completing its relay in 3:03:59. That time put the A team ahead of 415 other groups in the mixed division.
"We knew we'd do well, but we didn't expect to do this well," Cooper said. "It was a good surprise."
The Dartmouth Endurance Racing Team is familiar with the idea of long-distance relays, like the Ultra-Relay members ran from Maine to Hanover earlier this month.
Although the team has never before run in the Burlington marathon, Cooper said they chose it because the race's convenient location made transportation easier.
"Honestly, we were just looking for local races to do in the area," he said. "This is one that was close by, but it was nationally recognized. It looked like a fun race, and it was a good time."
The course, which loops through Burlington, is mostly characterized by rolling hills and flat stretches. For six blocks during the third leg, however, one hill's climb is so tough that it is known as the "Assault on Battery."
"One [leg] had a huge single hill," Koepsell said. "There was a Chinese drumming troupe at the bottom of it to cheer on the runners, which was kind of neat."
Werley-Prieto said that the decision by the members of the DSO to compete in the marathon was made "spur of the moment" because the orchestra's director, Tony Princiotti, was running the marathon individually.
"Most of us had never competed in road races before, except maybe in high school," she said. "We didn't really have any specific goals as far as the race was concerned, but I think we all had a good experience."
The DSO group finished with a time of 3:25:13.
Koepsell said this relay was a great way for the Dartmouth Endurance Racing Team, which she founded in 2006, to finish out its year.
"In the fall, it looked like [the team] wasn't going to succeed," she said. "And now, we're flying. We've been able to do a lot of races, and it's really rewarding to end like this, to blossom."
So many members of the team were interested in running this race that Koepsell and Cooper had to instate a full application process.
"We wanted a mix of newcomers and seasoned veterans," Cooper said. "We also looked for people who put down really creative things on the applications."
