I’VE been running for almost two years, ever since I lost almost 100 pounds. Another runner, Richard O’Brien, once said: “Running is not, as it so often seems, only about what you did in your last race or about how many miles you ran last week. It is, in a much more important way, about community, about appreciating all the miles run by other runners, too.”

That sums it up for me. Running helps me keep the weight off, but there’s something about training in a group — especially in a group you work with — that’s invaluable.

This past winter, five of us at St. Albans Town Educational Center, a public K-8 school in Vermont, decided to train together for the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon and Relay, scheduled for next Sunday. It’s held every year on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend in Burlington, about 26 miles from St. Albans — the distance of a marathon.

I ran the Green Mountain Marathon, my first, last October and signed up three days later for the Memorial Day weekend race. Carrie McAdoo, a fifth- and sixth-grade teacher, always runs this race, and she challenged me to do so. Jennifer Callahan, a kindergarten teacher, said, “Well, if you’ll do it, I’ll do it,” and she signed up. Then Daphne Dulude, another kindergarten teacher, jumped in, and Nicky Patterson, who team-teaches third and fourth grade with me, signed up, too.