I don’t know if you know but the USA snagged the women’s marathon title at the New York City Marathon on Sunday. This broke the drought of 40 years of not having a US women win the New York City Marathon. Shalane Flanagan won the New York City Marathon by over a minute on her closest opponent, who was the reigning champion of the New York City Marathon for the last 3 years.
Source: Shalane Flanagan Official Facebook Page
Shalane Flanagan was supposed to run the Boston Marathon this year but had to pull out before the race for a very serious back injury. Shalane had been ramping up the mileage before New York and it has been rumored that this will be her last competitive race. Shalane told reporters that she had the victims of the truck attack last Tuesday in New York City on her mind as she was running. She also said that she wanted to be a role model for women and girls that they can accomplish great things.
She was with the lead pack of women until about mile 23. She then got a 30 second lead on her nearest opponents. As you can tell by the photo above, no one was even close to her (the 2nd place woman came in a minute later).
Shalane got her start on the track. She is a four time Olympian, American record holder and a marathoner. She finished second at the New York City marathon in 2010. In 2014 she became the fastest women to complete the Boston Marathon (2:22:02). She has been a sponsored Nike runner since graduating college in 2004 and has been an elite runner for 16 years. She averages 100+ miles weekly and focuses on fueling and health as part of each training plan. She is one of the authors of the cookbook Run Fast. Eat Slow.
In addition to being super excited about the win for the women, there are really cool stories about the final finishers. I love that New York City Marathon treats all runners with the same enthusiasm, even if they are the final finisher. They completed something that only 1% of the world has done. The elite runners made a second appearance at the finish line on Sunday. They were there to give the medals to the final finishers. I can only imagine what the final runners thought when they saw Tatyana McFadden, 4 time wheelchair New York City Marathon winner, Shalane Flanagan who had just won the women’s marathon, Meb Keflezighi among others holding their medals.
Another story line from the New York City Marathon was Meb Keflezighi’s final marathon of his professional career. Meb finished his final marathon in 11th place. Meb is a professional runner who has had a stellar career. He has won 4 NCAA championships in the 5k indoor, 5k outdoor, and 10k outdoor. He is originally from Eritrea and came to America as a child refugee escaping from his home country, which was in the midst of a 30 year war with Ethiopia. He was one of 10 children. He became a US citizen in 1998 after graduating from UCLA. Meb lives in San Diego with his wife and 3 daughters. The first time Meb saw a car, he thought it was a death machine (this was at age 10). Meb started to learn English when his father would wake him up at 4:30 a.m. and read words from the dictionary. Meb has 11 siblings and 9 of them have college degrees.
Meb is the only person in history to win an Olympic Medal, the Boston Marathon, and the New York City. He has competed in 23 National Championships and had a place on 4 United States Olympic teams. He has finished 9 marathons in under 2:10 – more than a third of his career. Only 15 minutes separate his fastest and slowest marathons. His first marathon was the 2002 New York City Marathon. Meb won silver in the Athens Olympic Games. However his most well known Olympic appearance might be the Rio Games where he tripped at the finish line and did push ups for the crowd. After his first marathon, he like a lot of people vowed to never do it again. Now he has run 25 more marathons. Meb won the New York City marathon in 2009 and was the first US man to win since 1982 after Alberto Salazar did it. Meb has had several injuries but has never undergone surgeries for injuries. His fastest mile is 4:22 which he ran during the 2005 New York City Marathon.
As I think of the headlines from this weekend, I am excited and nervous about my first full marathon in less than 2 weeks. Doubts and concerns are starting to creep in which I have discovered is natural during taper time. (This will be the topic of another post later this week hopefully.) I am having to remind myself that I have put in the training and I will cross the finish line hopefully in less than 2 weeks.
Until next time,
Candace
Running on Second 