Deena Kastor is the fastest female marathoner to come out of the United States. She won the Chicago Marathon in 2005 and the London Marathon in 2006. With her London time of 2:19:36 hours, she broke her own American record, and is currently the fifth-fastest woman to have ever run a marathon.Deena doesn’t just win marathons. She owns four other American distance records, ranging from the half-marathon to the road 5K. In the 2004 Olympics in Athens, she won the bronze medal in a race that she considers to be one of the most special moments of her life. Her 3rd place was only the second time in history that an American woman had won an Olympic marathon medal.
Despite all these successes, Deena, now 36, has also had some challenges along the way. As recently as the 2008 Olympics, she was forced to drop out of the marathon at the 5K-point due to a broken foot. Since that time, she has been launching a comeback. At the Bay to Breakers road race in San Francisco this past May, she placed third overall, despite a nine-week break due to her foot injury. She has recently announced that she will be running the Chicago Marathon in October.
Take The Magic Step® spoke with Kastor in Mammoth Lakes, California, where she lives with her husband, Andrew.
How is your training going as you prepare yourself for Chicago?
Deena Kastor: I had a little scare with my foot in the month of June that had me taking a few months off. The past three weeks, I’ve gotten in some great training. Last weekend, I ran the New York Half-Marathon and that didn’t go so well. If my training had been going well, I wouldn’t have been so happy with it. I was thrilled that I came out of it with my foot feeling great, although my performance wasn’t spectacular. It’s been one week since the race and it’s been my first week of all running and no cross training so it’s another step in the right direction. I don’t have a lot of time to get ready for Chicago so everything’s going to have to go off perfectly for me to pull off being in the shape that I want to be in. My goal is to win the race and I typically get in shape fast and now it seems my body is able to handle the workload that I want it to. It’s coming around at the right time. I feel like I have the perfect amount of time to get ready for this as long as everything goes smoothly from here on out.
Why have you decided to run Chicago and not another major marathon in the fall?
Deena: In 2005, Chicago was my first major marathon win which was really exciting. Plus, I raced well at the 8K, a road race that Bank of America also puts on in the spring. All of my races in Chicago have been great ones. I wanted my first marathon back after Beijing be in a place that has boded well for me in the past. I’m pretty excited about it. I ran my first race back there at the Shamrock Shuffle in March (an 8K road race) despite the sleet and snow that morning. It just holds a great place in my heart, because I’ve been so successful there.
You are coached by Terrence Mahon. He also happens to be Ryan Hall’s coach, along with a lot of other top American talent. Is your time limited with him?
Deena: Terrence is very much a hands-on coach. He’s over in Europe at the World Championships right now [Editor’s note: The interview was conducted while the World Championships were taking place in Berlin.], because we have a couple athletes competing there. He’s with me every step of the way. He tries to be all places at one time. If you look at his flight schedules, you can see that he manages to almost pull it off. For being such a young and new coach in this sport, he is such a wealth of knowledge—anything from training to recovery. He is such a great healer and we benefit from his skills. It’s just a testament how well we do under him. He just knows the right thing to say to each athlete. He’s a great guide who helps us physically and psychologically. We all have individual training schedules, but work together in fulfilling our goals. He’s got a great talent at working with us as individuals, but at the same time making us feel like a great team.
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