At St. Luke’s and in Boston, duo push one another to unexpected heights

Achieving a longtime goal is fulfilling in itself.

Doing it with one of your best friends? That’s once-in-a-lifetime type stuff.

For Sasha Chavez and Amy Kelly, both team members at St. Luke’s Wood River, that happened on April 20 in Boston.

The pair qualified for the Boston Marathon last summer — also together — and decided they were going to go for it at perhaps the world’s most famous distance running event.

“I never had dreamt I could accomplish something like that,” said Kelly, a laboratory technical lead. “Sasha had the idea, so we worked together to do it. But having someone so special to me accomplish it too, it still makes me tearful thinking about it. It’s the best.”

Chavez, a nurse practitioner at St. Luke’s Clinic: Internal Medicine, was an all-Big Sky Conference runner at Idaho State University. Running a marathon “one day” was always in her mind, especially the big one — Boston.

“We’ve spent a lot of time together the last few years, and she’s mostly been a trail runner,” Chavez said. “I’d talked about wanting to run Boston, being the fun friend I am, I told her, ‘You totally can do it.’”

First meeting through work at St. Luke’s, Chavez and Kelly have made it a point to go on adventures together. Coming back from the grueling Rim to Rim to Rim run at the Grand Canyon, they decided to enter Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minn., last summer.

Chavez ran it in 3 hours, 8 minutes, 46 seconds. Kelly did it in 3 hours 14 minutes and 55 seconds. In Boston, they finished just 2:29 apart, with Chavez finishing in 3:07:25 and Kelly besting her Grandma’s Marathon time by 5 minutes (3:09:54).

“It makes me emotional thinking how far she’s come,” Chavez said. “It can be intimidating, but she went out and just crushed it.”

From the mountain roads around Ketchum and Hailey to the old East Coast city with 29,000 other finishers and another 500,000 or so spectators, it was a lot to take in.

“Nothing could have prepared me for that, all the people, how energetic they were, all the volunteers were awesome,” Kelly said. “It would’ve been impossible without Sasha. We trained a lot for Heartbreak Hill (an ascent about 20 miles in). She even had memorized all the landmarks, walked me through the important turns the night before.”

Chavez herself even enlisted a little St. Luke’s assistance to help her prepare for 26.2-mile event.

About two months out from Boston, she reached out to St. Luke’s physical therapist John Frey, telling him her running and treatment plan. She mentioned minor ailments and asked for his opinion on any potential, necessary changes.

“He helped me build a routine … it honestly made a huge difference,” Chavez said. “I’m a big believer in physical therapy more than ever.”

That personal touch is why both enjoy working at St. Luke’s Wood River, each citing the personal connections with patients and co-workers alike.

“I’m from Richfield, Idaho, it’s about 400 people … it’s always been important for me to be part of a tight-knit community and that’s what we have here (at St. Luke’s), you get to know the people a little better,” Chavez said.

Added Kelly: “The critical access feel, also getting to see your patients grow and get better, it’s special.”

While they get together for the occasional lunch break or daytime walk, Chavez and Kelly continue to bond outside of work. They are also hoping to make it a tradition to complete a big run together somewhere unique.

“As soon as we finished, it was like, ‘We gotta do another one,’” Kelly said. “We both qualified for the next New York and Chicago marathons, so that’s maybe next.”