Track and Field Blogs - Dot McMahan

Three outstanding runners made the team, two of which have heartbreaking stories from the 2004 Trials, placing 4th and 5th….alternates for the last Olympic team. It’s really the American dream, heartache in 2004 followed by 4 years of hard work, determination and sacrifice in addition to executing their race plan to finally make the team. For myself, I ran a near perfect race and could not be much happier. As some of you know, the marathon is a tough monster to tackle. Go out at too hard of a pace; pay the price later by hitting the wall. Don’t take in enough calories during the race through fluids; run out of energy later in the race. “Bonking” is all too common among all runners, elites and mid-packers alike. And of course the fatigue/pain that you know is coming at some point in the race, even if you do everything right - it’s going to hurt like hell. Going into this race I knew I could only do as much as I was trained to do. If I did the little things right, like run a consistent pace, take in fluids every 3 miles, get enough sleep/rest this week AND other competitors made some mistakes, I had an outside chance to make the team. Since I can’t control weather or other people’s race, I needed to run my own race. Sounds easy right? Well as some of you may have noticed, I’m a bit competitive so keeping focused on myself and not what other people are doing during the race is extremely difficult. The competitor inside me was screaming, “You are just as good as them, go with them!” But I knew that was not how I was going to run my best. That’s a very long explanation of why I helped lead the second pack through 20 miles, trailing the first pack by 15 seconds at the halfway point.

The final 6 miles, considered the “real” second half of the race, were no shock to me, the hardest. I had already passed a handful of people, including two former Olympians (who both eventually DNF). My mile pace began to slip from 5:50 to 6:03’s as my legs had been hurting for the previous 5 miles or so. Nevertheless I kept my eyes up searching for the unraveling first pack . Not seeing more than little specks, I buried my head and prayed to make it another mile. Sure enough those specks got bigger and bigger as I maintained sub-6:05’s. I continued to pass people moving from 14th to 9th those last 6 miles. Finally, after a big kick at the line, I nabbed 8th. But it was hard convincing myself that I needed to sprint for that 8th spot, and not settle for 9th because I just wanted the pain to stop.

Honestly, after the finish I didn’t think much about my time or place. I just ran as hard as I could and was thrilled with that accomplishment! Then I saw my husband and he was so surprised and excited for me. The last time he saw me was at mile 21, and I was in 11th place. His enthusiasm along with my fellow competitors, who were close during the race, really got me pumped. How could I think 8th place wasn’t something special? All those top ten favorites’ lists that came out before the Trials never included me. No one thought I was a top ten runner!!! Then a stranger said to me, after I told her I got 8th, that I was a part of history. Wow, I never thought about it that way before! It’s true though. Anywhere you look for results from the Olympic Trials they name the top ten finishers.

When I decided to become a professional athlete I wasn’t sure how far I would get or what was really possible, only that I wanted to become the best I could be. But within the last year, based on my progress and training, that changed. I now felt that a top ten finish was a reality and there was even an outside chance of placing in the top 3 to make the team. So, I didn’t make the team, but my place is still significant and my finish time a respectable achievement. I’ve made a place in history and am very happy with the race outcome. No matter what the future holds for me, at least I know I did everything I was able to do on race day and I have zero regrets.