Every year, the New York City Marathon, one of the six major marathons globally, attracts tens of thousands of runners from more than 150 nations. This year, that number included six runners from Saint Lucia, including the inspirational Ava Fevrier, who earlier this year set the national record for her event. Even better, she and fellow Saint Lucian runner Che Odlum-de Vivenot are firmly on course to win the coveted Six Star medal.
Originally from the village of Dennery, Fevrier has called the Big Apple home for close to 30 years. She first moved to Castries with her grandmother. She attended Ave Maria Girls’ Primary and, briefly, Leon Hess Comprehensive Secondary School, but she never gave a thought to serious participation in sports, much less a gruelling run of 26.2 miles. Nor was she heavily involved in athletics when she migrated in 1997 at the age of 13.
In fact, Fevrier only became a road runner in 2022, at age 38 and mother to a three-year-old, and credits the pandemic for sparking her passion. A longtime treadmill runner, she had always seen running as a fitness tool – never a pathway to community or competition. That changed during COVID lockdown, when she began watching marathon videos online.
She recalled being struck by the race, but initially assumed it was reserved for elite athletes. Despite living in New York for most of her life, she’d never heard anyone in her circle mention marathons. “Nobody ran; no family, no friends,” she said. “I never knew it was so accessible.”
It wasn’t until she stumbled upon a Yes Theory video, where a regular guy ran 26.2 miles around Paris, that the idea truly clicked. “This is just a regular dude running a marathon,” she thought. “And that looks like I can just do that, right?”
She googled “how to run a marathon”, and discovered a connection with one of her colleagues in the NYC Health + Hospitals system, where she is a social work supervisor. Her co-worker was a runner herself, and guided Fevrier on how to get a membership with New York Road Runners. She ran about 15 races that first year, earning herself a bib for the New York City Marathon, which she first ran in 2023.
Since then, though, she has run the distance six times, including New York City, Berlin, Chicago and London, where she crossed the line in 3:48:41 last April, the fastest marathon ever by a Saint Lucian woman. She is hoping to do Tokyo and Boston in 2026, the first two majors of the year. In Tokyo, she may meet up with Odlum-de Vivenot, who is also two-thirds of the way to earning a Six Star medal. Odlum-de Vivenot, however, is missing Tokyo and Berlin. She intends to run both next year, health permitting. They would follow Nitin Sharma, the only Saint Lucian to hold that honour.
Fevrier ended the 2025 NYC run on November 2 in 3:52:10, finishing in 16,142nd place. Shervon Small was the only Saint Lucian man in the race, ending in 4:19:09. Christine Gerson Pierre ran 5:01:26, Heather Charles 5:19:33, Odlum-de Vivenot 6:34:55, and Milhya Imbert 7:30:15.
For Odlum-de Vivenot, the race was a deeply emotional test. At the infamous “Last Damn Bridge” near Mile 21, she broke down in tears after dedicating that mile to her late mother – a tradition hosted by a kind stranger each year. “I was ugly crying,” she said. “Thank you, kind lady.”
Despite being undertrained due to injury, she described the experience as powerful and was moved by the unexpected kindness she encountered along the way.
Fevrier, too, called the marathon “powerful”, but for her, it was also a moment of clarity. Finishing a big race, she said, made her feel “invincible”, as if she were tapping into the best version of herself.
“Road running, a lot of it is like connecting with your body. What is my body feeling? What is my body doing? Where do I feel this ache? And then when you have your rhythm, then you go somewhere else, right? Then you go kind of a little bit deeper in the brain, in the psyche. And that’s the moment that you kind of make that crazy connection between the body and the mind. But the marathon is hard. You have to, like, really dig deep and find that same place.”
That sense of connection extends beyond the finish line. Fevrier has since struck up a friendship with Olympian and national record holder Zepherinus Joseph, one of her biggest supporters. Alongside Odlum-de Vivenot, they’re helping to build a Saint Lucian road running community. Four of the five women proudly represented the island at the Parade of Nations, the official kickoff to NYC Marathon Weekend.
Fevrier and Charles both ran London this year, but they never met up until NYC. Fevrier has the national flag emblazoned on her kit, though, so she is gaining recognition as “the” Saint Lucian runner, and drawing her fellow nationals to her. Two in 2024, four in 2025. “It was very slow to pick up,” she acknowledged. Fevrier, Charles, Odlum de Vivenot, and Zeph Joseph are in a chat group, and it is beginning to pick up traction. If Fevrier is able to add a Six Star medal to her national record, she is hopeful that the group will be able to add more members.
Fevrier, who turns 42 in February, admits it’s bittersweet to discover her talent so late in life. “But everything in its time,” she said. As a master’s runner and newcomer to the sport, she’s already setting records for Saint Lucia, a feat she finds deeply gratifying.
She credits her coach, Joe Shayne, and her performance team, TeamWrk, for helping her reach this level. “I could not have done this by myself,” she said.
Now that Fevrier is finding more people like her from her homeland, she is more motivated than ever to keep running. She is not sure about running faster than she did in London, but just finishing a marathon is an achievement in and of itself. Meanwhile, she is looking forward to having more Saint Lucians on parade on the New York City roads in 2026.
2026 Marathon Majors:
Tokyo: March 1
Boston: April 20
London: April 26
Berlin: September 27
Chicago: October 11
New York City: November 1
