By Shannon Russell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

If you thought sports reporters could only write about sports, then you haven't met Enquirer intern-turned-marathoner Colleen Kane.

This first-time marathoner and her older sister, Kristin, will run 26 miles, 385 yards at the Boston Marathon, which starts Monday at noon.

After all the work she's done lately, four hours of running should be a piece of cake. Kane, who graduated from the University of Illinois in December, will return to the paper in late April - just in time to cover the Flying Pig Marathon. The last time we talked to Kane, three days before race time, she was a little more worried about running the full marathon. The most she'd ever run at once was 20 miles. Amid much laughter, she sat down to talk about her upcoming experiences.

Question: Are you nuts? Why are you running a marathon?

Answer: (Laughing) No, I'm not nuts. It's something I always kind of wanted to do. I started running as a freshman in high school. My sister has bad knees, so it's something we wanted to get out of the way when we could. We wanted to do the New York Marathon, too.

Q: The fastest we've seen you run is to the fax machine. How did you qualify for the Boston Marathon?

A: Well, my sister-in-law Debbie works at an affiliate of John Hancock Financial Services (the race sponsor), so our qualifying times were waived. A lot of people get sponsored that way.

Q: Were you in any way inspired by music mogul-marathoner P.Diddy, who ran the New York Marathon in 2003?

A: Um ... I really didn't see P.Diddy's race.

Q: How about Oprah?

A: Did she run the Boston Marathon? (Note: No.) I figure if P.Diddy and Oprah can run marathons, I can, too.

Q: Were you inspired when you covered the Humana Heart Mini-Marathon?

A: John Sence (the men's race winner) was cool, and I talked to (women's winner) P.J. (Ball) a bit, too. I've been working on stories for the Pig, too, and I hear about people who've run 17 and 18 marathons. One man has run 40 in nine years!

Q: After you run the marathon, what's your next running goal?

A: I'd eventually like to qualify for Boston.

Q: What will you do in Boston?

A: We got here Thursday and a whole bunch of family and friends are here. (Thursday) we went on a college tour and saw Harvard, and Boston College. We're hoping we can get tickets to the Red Sox-Yankees game, but it's probably way out of our price range.

Q: So what would you rather do - run the marathon or cover it?

A: I'd rather run it.