Mardi Gras (three times), Chicago (once in 3:38), and Las Vegas International twice, in 1999 and 2000, where she achieved her best consecutive times of 3:37:58 and 3:37:11.

Turns out, Las Vegas would be her last marathon. She scaled back her mileage in order to avoid injury -- she’s had shin splints and minor stress fractures but nothing serious, she says -- and to keep running for years to come, she said.

"I do miss running marathons," Carey said. "I can still remember the feeling crossing the finish for every single one ... it’s such an emotional feeling."

Carey said every marathon experience was positive. She was blessed with good weather on race days and at Boston, she ran right past Heartbreak Hill -- where some runners are reduced to awalking pace -- never breaking stride.

"I asked another runner, where is Heartbreak Hill, and he said, you past it several miles back," she said.

Carey rises each weekday morning at 4 to run. Three afternoons a week she hits the gym for weight training.

She has served as Chef Andrea Apuzzo’s bookeeper at his Metairie restaurant for 26 years. She said co-workers laugh because for 26 years, she has eaten the same breakfast of dry cereal, a bagel and a banana, at her desk.

"I’m a creature of habit," she said. "I can’t help myself."

Carey has remained single and childless through her 56 years although she does share her Old Jefferson home with six lively chihuahuas.

"I’ve been lucky," Carey said as she sequed into a funny story.

"A repair man from a