Motivation for this weekend comes from Erin O’Mara, a 27 year-old Michigan native who has dropped her marathon time from 4:08 (debut in 2006) to 2:43:55 (2011 California International Marathon)! Her run at the California International Marathon earned her a spot in the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in January (cut-off for women is 2:45).
O’Mara set her sights on a Boston qualifier after her first marathon, and hit the goal one year later by dropping 46 minutes off her previous 4:08 time. It only took O’Mara until her fourth marathon to break the three hour mark. That is a tremendous drop in time, and is indicative of her goal-oriented nature. She now logs 100-120 mile weeks with long runs of up to 25 miles!
Although in only a month O’Mara will be racing in the marathon trials against a stacked women’s field of 200 runners, O’Mara says that simply making the trials has been the culmination of years working towards that goal: “It’s going to be a 26.2-mile victory lap for years of working hard to try to make that goal. It’s a great goal to have. It gives us something to shoot for. If they didn’t have it, I don’t know if I’d have worked this hard to run that time.”
Leave a Reply