9/11 Runner Handling Hatboro-Warminster Stretch Saturday

HATBORO, PA —She's a runner. Anyone out at all hours of the day and night may have spotted Judy Wonderly running.

She used to run as a resident of Doylestown and Quakertown in Bucks County. These days, the 67-year-old woman runs outside her Milton, DE, home near Rehoboth Beach.

And once a year, Wonderly runs in Hatboro.

That's for the Great American Relay, a running relay to remember the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America and to support the veterans. This year's relay supports the Green Berets.

The relay covers 547 miles over 101 legs and passes 57 firehouses in six states and Washington, D.C. It was started in 2020 by Vince Varallo with the first one stretching from Boston to Santa Monica, CA.Click here for more information about the Great American Relay.

So far, the Great American Relay has raised about $30,000. There were 1,200 runners last year, including Wonderly, who has run a stage for four years, and sometimes even two.

She chooses Hatboro because that's where her husband was raised. Her daughter is married to a Hatboro police officer.

"I don't want to miss my Hatboro people," she told Patch.

So Wonderly takes the lead for Stage 78, a 3.4-mile stretch that takes 12 minutes to go from the Enterprise Fire Company to the Hartsville Fire Company in Warminster.

Sometimes she takes two stages and runs Stage 77 from Abington to Hatboro.

While the relay begins on Sept. 11, Wonderly doesn't run her stage until Sept. 16.

She gets an escort from Hatboro Police Chief James Gardner and Hatboro police and fire personnel so her group can run safely and be noticed for their cause in a blaze of sirens and flags.

Hatboro hands off to the Warminster Police Department at County Line Road.

So she makes the drive from Delaware to participate in the relay. But not before spending an endless amount of training.

After all, she's a runner.

Wonderly ran her first race —the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia —in the mid-1990s.

She'll be running a marathon in Philadelphia in October and a race in Frankfort, Germany, in November.

Sometimes she runs 7 miles before work. She has some long-run days where she gets in about 23 miles on the weekends. Wonderly said she runs about 34 miles a week but stretches that to 43 miles when she is training for a race.

And for the Great American Relay, she'll run through the borough, right through York Road, and into Warminster where the Hartsville Fire Company is located.

"It's a cool feeling," Wonderly said. "Everyone is honking their horns and waving as we carry the American flag."

(Photo Courtesy of Judy Wonderly) Great American Relay runners reach the end of their stage at the 9/11 memorial at the Hartsville Fire Company in Warminster.