Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
I ended my blog four weeks ago by talking about my mother’s support of my running. With Father’s Day approaching, my dad needs a proper tribute! My dad has been equally supportive, but in a different way. Like my mom, he never ran competitively. He has, however, played sports for his whole life. Throughout my childhood, I had the chance to see his pure enjoyment of all sports. By watching him, I saw the importance he placed on participating in athletic endeavors at any level and the importance of learning to work with a team. These lessons did not translate into success in any of the sports that he actually played (as I have mentioned in past blogs, I was terrible at any sport involving a ball), but they did apply to running.
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They finished 1-2-3 in Boston at the USA Olympic Team Trials - Women’s Marathon last month, and now Deena Kastor, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell will be teaming-up again to compete in the 37th edition of the NYRR New York Mini 10-K. Slated for Saturday, June 7, the “Mini” is the oldest all-women’s road race in the world, founded by Fred Lebow and the New York Road Runners in 1972.
“This is a formidable and very experienced squad with legitimate Olympic medal hopes that all of America should be very proud of,” commented Mary Wittenberg, president and CEO of the New York Road Runners. “Having them all here for the Mini reflects our commitment to America’s top athletes and demonstrates that the road to Beijing continues to run through Central Park for America’s Olympians.”
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
For the first few weeks after the Olympic Marathon Trials, I was not able to run at all, but I thought about running constantly. Worries about what I had done wrong filled my head and doubts made me question all of my decisions leading up to the race. As my knee improved and I progressed toward running again, those thoughts quickly changed from the past to the future. I kept wondering what those first few steps of running would feel like. The first run loomed over thoughts and I wanted to do everything I could do to make sure that it went well.
I have been running for 13 years. In an ideal world, all those years of experience would make the act of running instinctual. I would not have needed to waste energy with all these thoughts. Instead, I felt sick with worry that my feet would no longer remember how to support me, my arms would start flailing, and my knees would buckle forward into each other.
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
For the first time in my life, I dropped out of a race yesterday. I had been eagerly anticipating the Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials since October 8th. That was the day after the Chicago Marathon. For the first 24 hours after the race, I was too exhausted to even contemplate running another marathon, but once I had had a full day to recover, I began dreaming of the possibilities and felt eager to test myself over the 26.2 mile distance again. The thought of racing at the Trials in my hometown in front of my family and friends made me even more excited. I struggled for the first few months of training after Chicago, but by Christmas time training was on an upswing and I could see improvements every week.
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One of the sentimental favorites for the upcoming USA Olympic Team Trials - Women’s Marathon, Colleen De Reuck, has decided to withdraw from the race due to a calf injury.
De Reuck, who turns 44 on Sunday, is the defending Trials champion, a victory she earned just ten days before her 40th birthday in 2004, sending her to her fourth Olympic Games, and her first as an American. She’s also the Trials record holder.
Coached by her husband, Darren, De Reuck was returning to form after having her second daughter, Tara, last July. She first injured the calf at the U.S. Cross Country Championships last February, then reinjured it at the U.S. 15-K Championships in Jacksonville, Fla., last month.
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
Last Sunday, we celebrated Easter as a team. We started the day off like any other group of people on a holiday – with long runs ranging from 17 to 23 miles. Then we all went home to rest up and prepare a dish to bring to Sara and Steve Slatterys’ condominium for Easter dinner.
I felt inspired to bring something that fit the holiday, but something that would also force me to be a little creative. After much hemming and hawing, I finally resolved to make sweet potato puree with a twist. Rather than adding marshmallows to the dish, I would add Easter peeps.
My sister and I have always loved Easter peeps. Every year, we bought a box as soon as they arrived in the stores. In the last few years, I’ve started to like them a little less, but I still crave them, mostly for nostalgic reasons. Their novelty has started to wear off a little bit now that they make them for every holiday (part of the company’s campaign called “Peeps – Always in Season”), but the Easter ones are still the real deal. I’ve bought the Christmas-tree-shaped peeps for gingerbread houses a few times, but most years I save up my peep appetite for Easter.
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark http://kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com/ and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
As I write this blog, I am on my way back from the Lisbon, Portugal. My plane is about to land in Frankfurt, Germany where I have a five hour layover before my 11 hour flight back to the US. So I still have a long day of travel ahead of me! On the bright side, the change in time zones will make St. Patrick’s Day seven hours longer for me! As someone who is 99.999% Irish I’ll try to find some joy in that fact, even though St. Patrick’s Day hasn’t really been the same since I moved from the East Coast and started missing my parents’ annual corned beef and cabbage dinner.
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark http://kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com/ and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
According to holidaysforeveryday.com, March is Cabin Fever Month. I go to this website often in search of something fun to celebrate. I don’t observe all of the mini-holidays. (For example, January 2nd is Swiss Cheese Day, but that is one of my least favorite kinds of cheese so I bypassed that holiday. January 19th is Learn to Ski Day, but I think I will have to wait until my running career is over before picking up that sport.) At the end of January when my roommates and I were searching for a reason to throw a party, we were ecstatic to find that January 26th is Australia Day! All the guests had to bring an Australian dish. Most approached this challenge with their whole-hearted enthusiasm, procuring crocodile meat, whipping up egg whites to make Pavlova, and building an Australian salad (a hard thing to do in the dead of winter since Australia’s seasons are opposite to ours.) One person, who shall remain nameless, just bought some Teddy Grahams and taped the word Koala over the word Teddy. While this did not require a great amount of effort, we were impressed with his resourcefulness.
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Hi, this is my blog in TFS’s Elite Athlete Blog Series. Bookmark http://kateoneill.thefinalsprint.com/ and check back every other Monday for my latest entry as I strive for the 2008 Summer Olympics!
In terms of energy conservation, I like to think that I’m fairly good to the environment. My reality came crashing down on me this morning when I blew a fuse while using both a microwave oven and a panini press at the same time. It took me a second to realize what I had done and then I felt horrified that I was using that much energy just to make lunch for my boyfriend and me.
I felt guilty about it until going for my second run and listening to a “Science Friday” podcast. (“Science Friday” is weekly discussion of the latest news in science, technology, health, and the environment on National Public Radio. Read the rest of this entry »
Melanie Peters of St. Petersburg, Fla., won the Walt Disney World Marathon on January 13, but her victory wasn’t a joyous one. Attempting to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Women’s Marathon in Boston on April 20, Peters missed the minimum standard of two hours and 47 minutes by 29 seconds, less than on second per kilometer.
Undeterred, the 24 year-old Peters lined up at yesterday’s Gasparilla Distance Classic Marathon in Tampa, Fla., just 28 days later to give it one last shot at qualifying. Finishing fifth overall, and the first amongst women, Peters clocked 2:46:45 to make her first Olympic Trials. The effort completely sapped her; the Tampa Tribune reported that her legs buckled at the finish line and she had to be taken to the medical area in a wheelchair.
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