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Hansons’ women are headed for Boston

Posted February 14th, 2007 at 11:30 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Marathons

Although the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project may be best known for their male athletes, like Brian Sell, Chad Johnson and Clint Verran, they also have a women’s program.

Five of them –Desiree Davila, Yolanda Flamino, Dot McMahan, Kelly Stewart, and Melissa White– will be visiting Boston on February 15-17 to train on the traditional Boston Marathon course, and to tour the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials route. The 2007 Boston Marathon will host the U.S. Women’s Marathon Championship on April 16.

On the men’s side, the Hansons team put six men in the top-20 at Boston last year, led by Brian Sell’s fourth place finish. This year, they are hoping that their women will enjoy similar success. White (2:39:21 PB), McMahan (2:43:27) and Flamino (2:45:19) have already made 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifying marks, but Davila and Stewart have not. Davila will be making her marathon debut at Boston while Stewart will try to lower her personal best from 2:58:21 to 2:47:00 or faster, the minimum qualifying time for participating in the Trials (she can also participate if she runs 33:00.00 or faster for 10,000m).

Accompanying the team to Boston this week will be Hansons-Brooks co-founders Keith and Kevin Hanson. The brothers, who own a chain of running shoe stores in Michigan, founded the Distance Project in 2000 with the goal of giving something back to the sport. They now own several houses for the team, and provide travel, coaching and part-time jobs for 22 athletes.