The life of a working mom can be as challenging as a marathon.

Mix in a marathon-running hobby, and a day hardly has enough hours.

That juggling act has been perfected by two Lawrence women among the city’s 11 runners scheduled to participate in Monday’s Boston Marathon.

Denise Severn, 36, and Erika Nilles-Plumlee, 31, work 20-plus hours a week, commute 45 minutes each way, and each has two children.

The running is fun, motherhood is a joy, and the jobs have rewards. The true work is the balancing act.

“I think sometimes moms and dads are guilty of letting go of whatever the thing is that they love, and they are focused on raising their kids,” Denise said. “And then the kids leave, and then they’re like, ‘Wow, who am I, and what do I enjoy doing?’ So I think it’s important to pick something that you really love to do.”

And that love was running, which Denise started at Kansas City Sumner on the cross country and track teams.

“I kind of got started by default,” she said. “I was a cheerleader, and we couldn’t do any of the other sports, but we could still do cross country. I was stuck with it after I felt what it was like to have a runner’s high.”

Erika took a little longer to join the scene. She played basketball, volleyball and soccer at her Illinois high school before moving to Manhattan, then played basketball her senior year at Manhattan High.

She then spent two years playing basketball for Johnson County Community College before transferring to Kansas State, but never really was into long-distance running.

“I was so competitive that I think, now for me, this really isn’t a competition, and I don’t need that competition in my life where I used to,” Erika said. “Now, I think it’s more for the peace of mind and the relaxation.”

Lawrence residents Denise Severn, left, and Erika Nilles-Plumlee are among 11 Lawrencians who will be participating in this year's Boston Marathon Monday.

Hitting goals

Running simply for relaxation was why Denise returned to the sport after getting off track at college. While attending Kansas University, she had to shorten her running to power walking.

“I resumed running after college just in general and for exercise,” she said. “Then, first, my goal was just to finish a marathon and to have fun without walking. After that, it was to try to finish under four hours.”

Denise hit that goal at the 2004 Chicago Marathon and was under the 3:45:00 qualifying time for the Boston Marathon in the 35-39 age group, clocking in at 3:40:38. The marathon, traditionally run on Patriots Day, is the only marathon for which runners must qualify.

Erika ran a 3:38:38 in Chicago – her first marathon. It qualified her for the 18-34 age group that demanded a time of 3:40:00 or better.

“Ten miles was the longest I had run prior to that – pre-kids, of course,” Erika said.

The pair qualified to run in the 2005 Boston Marathon, but runners are allowed 18 months to use the qualifying time, and the pair held out hope that other friends might qualify for Monday’s race.

That’s exactly what happened. Jack Hope, Scott McVey and Jeff Sigler, three other members of the training group in which Denise and Erika run, also qualified for the 26-mile, 385-yard race.

Six other Lawrence runners also will make the trip to Boston: Nat Collins, Scott Forkenbrock, Richard Friesner, John Reed, Jennifer West and Molly Wood.

Training hard

The group’s training routine includes meeting at 5:30 a.m. one day each week for a short distance run of about 45 minutes or less. Then comes the weekend, and more grueling runs.

They run 10 miles and add a mile or two each week. On every third week, they’ll drop back down so they can regain energy and build their times back up. And the rest of the week they are on their own.

Unplanned, runners often run into each other on the trails.

“When you’re training for a marathon, Lawrence gets really small,” Erika said.

Both women live and train in Lawrence, but neither works in town. Erika works part-time as a case-management coordinator at the Lansing Correctional Facility, developing programs for re-entry of inmates who are being released from prison.

The facility is an all-male prison, which makes for some interesting conversation from inmates when she walks through the yard to get to her office.

“Sometimes it’s hard not to laugh,” Erika said. “You’re kind of like, ‘Did that really just come out of their mouth?'”

Denise drives 45 minutes to the Shawnee Mission Medical Center to work as a part-time nurse in the obstetrical ward. She leaves at six in the morning on Tuesday and Thursday for 12-hour shifts. She readies the troops in motherly fashion, from leaving notes for her husband to picking out clothes for the kids.

The difficulty with working as a nurse is Denise occasionally has to work late and may not get home until 9 p.m. or later.

Still, working just two days a week suits her.

“It’s the perfect compromise between deciding if you’re going to stay home full-time with your kids or work full-time,” she said.

Once in a while, the kids get to watch their moms having playtime.

Denise’s husband, Tim, and Erika’s husband, Jeff, occasionally take the kids to runs close to Lawrence.

“You get finisher’s medals, and (the kids) think that means you won it,” Denise said. “They like to put them on and run around.”

Natural high

Denise and Erika get a high from running. They get a joy from being engrossed with the surroundings of city life and nature.

Running provides quiet time for planning and socializing, things they said they probably wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

But they said the best part of their early morning runs was watching Lawrence wake up.

“I do really like being up on campus when the sun’s coming up,” Erika said. “There are times through the winter where it was kind of foggy, and it was just an eerie feeling. You’re up there, you can see out, but all you saw was fog, and it was just really pretty. In fact, sometimes it kind of almost looks like water.”

They’ll get the chance to see how Boston wakes up during Monday’s marathon. Denise and Erika headed Saturday morning to Boston with their husbands, while the grandparents watch the kids.

The Red Sox start Patriots Day with an 11 a.m. game against the Seattle Mariners in Fenway Park, and one hour later Denise and Erika will kick-start their day with a pleasant 26.2-mile jaunt through Boston.

“It’s like my morning coffee,” Denise said. “It’s just the best way to start the day.”

Bound for Boston

Lawrence runners in Monday’s Boston Marathon:

¢ Denise Severn n Erika Nilles-Plumlee

¢ Jack Hope

¢ Scott McVey n Jeff Sigler

¢ Nat Collins

¢ Scott Forkenbrock

¢ Richard Friesner

¢ John Reed

¢ Jennifer West n Molly Wood