"They dragged two girls out of the stands."

Robin Emery has won more road races in Maine than any woman in Maine running history. Among her estimated 255 victories were 13 first-place finishers in the Portland Boys Club 5-Mile Race and 14 wins in the Bangor Labor Day 5-Mile Road Race. Her last win at Bangor came at age 51.

Born in 1946, Emery grew up in Pennsylvania and Ellsworth, Maine. There were no competitive sports offered for women at her high school, nor at Allegheny College where Emery got her teaching degree. She played golf on her own.

"I got started in running by way of walking," said Emery. "I wanted to be fit, but I thought walking took too long and was boring, so one night in 1966 I ran around a 4-mile loop in Lamoine. The next night I wanted to see if I could do it again and from then on I was hooked. I did a lot of running in graveyards and at night so no one would make fun of me."

Both Emery and Diane Fournier were the forerunners of a new era of women's running, entering the sport at a time when it wasn’t regarded as “lady-like” for women to sweat, and when competition for women (when there was any at all) was limited to races of a half mile or less. "When I started, we had no role models and no one to encourage us," said Emery. Her first race was in 1971 at a track meet in Brewer, and Emery was the only one entered in the 880 that day. “So they dragged two girls out of the stands to start the race and then they dropped out," said Emery. The race was run in a steady downpour.

But Emery's father showed interest in her running, as did Portlander Dick Goodie who encouraged her and Diane Fournier to enter road races along with men in the Maine Masters events. Emery eventually got a coach, Jeff Johnson, who coached Liberty AC, and Johnson mailed her training advice and encouraged her to run out of state.

During the 1970s and ‘80s, Emery estimates that, conservatively, she won about 255 races. She won the Portland Boys Club 5-Miler an outstanding 13 times, with a personal best of 29:06 in 1981. She won the Bangor Labor Day 5-Miler 14 times, with a best of 30:01. "The first three years I ran the Labor Day 5-Miler, they didn't recognize women at all. I was the only one." She remembers race organizers telling her, "You can run, but don't get in the way.” By 1983, there were 80 women in the field. She was named Runner of the Year in 1976, 1980, and 1986, but she would likely have won the award numerous other years if the award had been in existence for women.

One of her most memorable races was her first Portland Boys Club race in 1972 when she ran 33:04. Portland Press Herald writer Vern Putney remembers it just as well. Putney, who once worked at the Boys Club before he got a job at the Portland newspaper, recalled that in all the years he covered the Portland Boys Club race, "only once did Bart Peverada (race director) deliver bad news. He showed me two race applications, those of Robin Emery and Diane Fournier. The executive director had vetoed their entry. I wouldn't settle for that! ‘Go back to the club and tell them that females are the wave of the future!’" Putney remembers telling Peverada, “‘and that I don't wish a black eye for the Boys Club in the form of discrimination.’ Bart relayed the message, and I welcomed the lovely Robin at the starting line. Surely spring was in the air! She considered the early-morning takeoff from Ellsworth well worth the sacrifice."

All the years she ran in the Portland Boys Club race, Emery lost just twice – once to Leslie Wells, and another time to Joan Benoit.

Emery ran her first Boston Marathon in 1977, which she finished in 3:30. It was one of her greatest running experiences. But her greatest moment was when she won the master's division in the Tufts 10-K in 1991, netting her a $500 cash prize. She typically trained about 60 miles a week on one workout per day, and she competed in about 22 races a year.

An elementary school teacher for many years, in Ellsworth and later in Norfolk, Mass., Emery competed for several clubs, including the Liberty AC, the Seacoast Striders, Down East Striders, and Hog Bay Trotters.

"Running continues to mean a lot to me," said Emery in 1994, at age 47. "I really enjoyed Masters competition. It is wonderful to see all the women competing today without having to go through all the social problems we did back in the 1960s.”

Robin Emery showed Mainers in 1998 that even at age 51, she could still win big races. She came up to Bangor on Labor Day that year, just a month shy of her 52nd birthday, and took first place among the women. The following year race organizers dedicated the race in her honor.