114th Boston Marathon; Faces in the crowd.

Byline: John Conceison

Anne Carney

Oxford - No. 23329

For Anne Carney, running Boston has been inevitable.

She's always been on the run, whether the mile to Woodland Street School Annex in Worcester as a fifth-grader, on the field hockey or soccer pitches at South High, Worcester State and Nichols, or simply rushing to work at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine in Grafton after sending her three young children to school.

Which, of course, now often follows a running workout before sunrise.

And one gallant inspiration has been younger brother Vrej Kandoyan, who posted a 3:10 in the 2000 Boston Marathon and broke 3 hours at the distance before injuries forced him to stick with shorter events.

Last year, Carney got to the starting line - as a volunteer in Hopkinton loading bags of runners' belongings onto school busses heading for the finish. This year, the dream comes true, when she and 15 others run tomorrow while raising funds for the New England Center for Children, a school for autistic children and research. As of last week, Carney had raised $3,180 in pledges.

Carney, 42, began building her road-running resume with the inaugural Canal Diggers 5K in Worcester in 2007 and has taken in about 10 events a year since. And past her unassuming smile, she has enjoyed considerable success, earning her first overall women's victory at the 2008 5K Winter Run in Nantucket, where she met her husband Bill a few years earlier.

After running in the Hyannis Half Marathon and Tri-Valley...