Fast Women: How Maria Lindberg took 15 minutes off her marathon PR at age 42
Cross country wins for NC State, BYU as the season heats up.
Issue 377, sponsored by Bakline
Three decades into her running career, Maria Lindberg has a breakthrough season
At the Chicago Marathon on October 12, Maria Lindberg, 42, became the first masters athlete to hit the time qualifier for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, running 2:34:59 to finish 17th. Chicago was Lindberg’s 21st marathon and she began the year as a 2:49 marathoner. How does an athlete make such a big jump 19 years into her marathon career? To answer that, it helps to go back about 25 years.
During her senior year at York High School in Elmhurst, Illinois, Lindberg, then Maria Cicero, was one of the best young runners in the country. She won state titles in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. She finished 13th at the 2000 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships. And she went on to compete for Boston College, where she continued to excel.
In her first year of college, she ran away from Sara Hall, among others, to win the 2002 USATF Junior Cross Country title. She earned three All-America honors in cross country, finishing 15th (2004), 16th (2001), and 18th (2002), and was also an All-American on the track, finishing fifth in the 10,000m at the 2002 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Lindberg had many positive experiences as a high school and college runner, and in that sense, she looks back on the experience fondly. But she also now recognizes how low her self confidence was at the time, and that she was overexercising and underfueling.
“That’s the part I look back on and wish I would have taken the alternate path, because I think I would have had more longevity competitively,” she told Fast Women. “I got a lot of praise for running fast and winning state championships, and it was so exciting and fun. But that naturally comes with a pressure to keep it going. I was 16 or 17 when I started having a lot of success, and when you’re that young, you’re not fully formed developmentally in terms of knowing yourself and knowing what’s healthy. And I think that contributed to my tendency to push my body and see how much I could get out of it. That can be an admirable thing, but not if you’re doing it underfueled and without balance.”
Putting running on the back burner
Feeling burned out after college, Lindberg opted to focus on her career and creating more balance in her life. She kept running, but less regularly, and she didn’t follow a training schedule. She remembers doing 30- to 40-minute runs before work, and jumping in races here and there, but she had no plans to return to high-level running.
Around the same time, at age 23, she learned that she had a BRCA gene mutation that greatly increased the risk that she would develop breast and/or ovarian cancer. That led to a lot of anxiety, but she also appreciated the opportunity to potentially take proactive measures, rather than reactive ones. “My family has been riddled with cancer for generations, but we didn’t know why until I found out I had the gene and educated my extended family about what we were dealing with,” she said. “Knowing I had the gene, it was like a ticking time bomb. But it put some of the power back in my hands [in terms] of what I could do.”
When Lindberg was 10, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and she was keenly aware of how fortunate they were that her mother survived. Lindberg didn’t make any immediate changes beyond getting regular cancer screenings, but the weight of knowing she had the gene mutation was always present.
The same year, Lindberg made her marathon debut at the 2006 Chicago Marathon, and it almost turned her off the distance for good. She went into the race with some soreness in her foot, felt a pop during the race, and it turned out she had fractured it. She finished in 3:24:14 and ended up in a boot for several months.
“I was forever put off by the marathon,” she said. “I was like, ‘That’s the most absurd thing. I hated it.’ So it took me four years to try it again.”
The second time around, Lindberg went in thinking she clearly had no talent for the marathon but she would run somewhat for fun. She finished the 2010 Chicago Marathon in 3:09:39, a major improvement. But she was also racing without taking in any fuel or water. (In her defense, when she began racing marathons, information about in-race fueling wasn’t as readily available as it is now, and there weren’t as many good options.) She had tried fueling in a race once and got very sick. She figured she just wasn’t a person who could do it.
Lindberg had her first child at the end of 2012 and took her first overnight trip away from him to run the 2014 Bayshore Marathon, her fifth marathon. That was when marathon weekends started to became mini getaways for her and her husband. She had moved back to her hometown, and her mother was happy to take on childcare duties. “There’s so much joy in being a mom,” she said. “But it’s so chaotic and busy that I need some time on my own to think.”
She was anxious about leaving her son, and she was pumping every four hours, but she surprised herself by running a 15-minute personal best of 2:50:44 and winning the race. She still hadn’t figured out fueling, but she saw that she might have more potential than she previously realized.
It would be another nine years, however, before Lindberg ran her next PR in the marathon. She had two more children, in 2015 and 2017. With each pregnancy, her cancer-related anxiety increased, because she wasn’t able to get MRIs during that time. When she was done nursing her third child, Lindberg had a prophylactic mastectomy, followed by reconstruction surgery. And in 2022, when she was 39, she had a prophylactic hysterectomy.
Lindberg kept training and racing throughout all of it, but the many stops and starts meant that it was difficult to really see what she was capable of. “I don’t think I slept for eight straight years,” she said. “[None of my kids] slept through the night until they were two. I nursed all these babies until they were like one and a half. Everything was just like momville all day, all the time. And running was just [an opportunity to] get out of the house. I was still doing the work, but I don’t think I had any of the infrastructure to feel like I could actually do it and recover and focus on running. Running was just an auxiliary thing to do to help manage life.”
Her hysterectomy was freeing in the sense that it relieved much of the cancer-related anxiety that she had been experiencing for years, but it also raised a lot of questions about how it would affect the rest of her life, because it immediately put her into menopause. It was a jarring transition, but she also felt fortunate because she knew it was coming, she was able to start getting supplemental estrogen right away.
Around that time, a doctor recommended that she try doing yoga to build her strength and help ward off some of the menopause symptoms she might experience. She’s done it about three times a week for the past two years, and she’s found that it has had a tremendous positive impact on her running as well, including helping her body handle a higher volume of training.
Lindberg considers the 2023 Glass City Marathon to be the first marathon where she really fueled well. At age 40, she broke her nine-year-old PR and finished fifth in 2:49:50. It was a very meaningful moment for her. “If you had seen my texts to my family, you would have thought that I qualified for the Trials,” she said. “Breaking 2:50 felt like something I couldn’t do, so I felt like I had broken through a wall.”
A breakthrough at age 42
For years, Lindberg has mainly seen herself as a marathoner. But this year, she decided to do the Chicago Area Runners Association Circuit, which includes races of all distances. In training for marathons, she had done some tempos and intervals on the roads, but her preparation for the circuit race put her back on the track for the first time in years, and she started to find gears that she hadn’t touched since college.
She has also been able to handle a higher volume of training than ever before. Her marathon training included a couple of 110-mile weeks. And it helps that her children are now 8, 10, and 12 and more independent.
Because of her parenting responsibilities, Lindberg has stepped back from her work as a therapist, but she says she’ll likely increase her hours again in the future. For now, she does most of her training while her children are at school, with her long runs on Fridays. She is self-coached—she says she’s pretty stubborn, not particularly coachable, and she knows what she needs to feel confident going into a race. And she does all of her training alone.
In January, Lindberg lowered her half marathon time to 1:19:06, and a month later, she won the Wilmington Marathon in 2:43:23, a six-minute personal best. At the end of March, she shaved off three more minutes, running 2:39:22 to take third at the McKirdy Micro Road to Tokyo Marathon. Having personal bottle service and not having to carry her gels at that race felt luxurious to her, and it really drove home the fact that being well fueled had a positive impact on her performance.
“I was clearly a slow learner,” she joked. “It took me 20 marathons, and you should be able to get that in like three marathons. But I just had to learn it for myself.”
In April, she lowered her 5K time to 16:41, only 28 seconds slower than her 5,000m personal best from 23 years ago. In July, she ran a 4:56 mile on the track, and in September, she lowered her half marathon PR to 1:15:13. “Running well at the shorter distances reminds me that I’m able to do so much more with a strong body than I was when I was underweight and underfueled,” she said.
It also helped her believe that running under the Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time of 2:37:00 was a realistic goal. In Chicago, her main focus was on breaking 2:39 and running a personal best. She went through 5K in 18:28 and made sure she was running at an effort that felt sustainable.
She hit halfway in 1:17:41 and negative split the race, covering the second half in 1:17:18. Her 2:34:59 placed her second in the masters division and was a personal best by more than four minutes. She was shocked and thrilled to finish in 2:34:59, but she was also a little teary because her father, who passed away unexpectedly in 2019, wasn’t there to see it happen.
In her quest to qualify for the Trials, Lindberg signed up for many races this year. A week after Chicago, she was already back at it, finishing third in the Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon, in 1:18:13. She’s registered for both the California International Marathon and the Marathon Project but says she won’t run both, and she plans to run her first Boston Marathon in April. In addition to continuing to see what she’s capable of in the marathon, Lindberg is excited to work on bringing down some of her times at shorter distances as well.
Qualifying for the Trials was a huge goal for Lindberg, but her main aim is to continue focusing on doing what she loves and seeing what comes of it. “I think for so long, I had that cognitive distortion of the arrival fallacy—if I only did this, then I’d be happy,” she said. “And that kind of thinking can lead to having all of your eggs in one basket. My life is so much more balanced now, and ironically, it’s been so helpful for my running because my focus is on so many other things. I feel like I’m able to get my best out of running because I don’t put all of my energy toward it.”
Thanks to Bakline for sponsoring Fast Women this month
Caitlin McGinley won Sunday’s Baystate Marathon in a two-and-a-half-minute PR of 2:37:13. She made her marathon debut at Baystate in 2022, where she ran 2:55:18. “If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d average sub-6:00 pace, I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said.
She battled through a nagging core strain and legs that threatened to give out, but with a chip time of 2:37:11.8, she was only 11.8 seconds away from qualifying for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Her perspective? “I told myself before committing to this goal that I would not let an arbitrary time ruin running for me,” she said. “So the only tears I’m shedding today are tears of joy.”
McGinley first discovered Bakline at the 2023 Bakline McKirdy Micro Marathon. And now, as she puts it, “I love Bakline gear, it’s all I wear.” In most of her races, she’s sporting the Riverside Crop and the Distance Briefs. We design every piece with that same mindset: comfort first, so you can focus on the miles, not the fabric.
Her perspective and persistence encapsulates the spirit of our marathon collection designs this year: Giving yourself a chance. For those gearing up for Chicago, Philly, or New York, our marathon collections are built with race day in mind. Chicago is live now, while New York and Philly are available in-store and drop online this Friday.
The college cross country season picks up steam
College cross country has become a sport where a lot of the top runners tend to race infrequently, and some teams don’t run their top seven runners together until the final race of the season. But this past weekend, some of the top teams showed more of their cards.
The individual race that got the most attention was BYU’s Jane Hedengren making her college debut at the Pre–National Invitational on Friday in Columbia, Missouri. Hedengren stuck with the pack for about half of the race before pulling away. She won the 6K race in 18:42.3 and took 24.7 seconds off of the course record that Washington State’s Rosemary Longisa ran three weeks earlier.
The event gave athletes a chance to check out the course that will host the NCAA championships in November, but some teams had to skip the meet at the last minute because it got moved up a day due to inclement weather. BYU, the top-ranked team in the country, dominated the team race, winning 25 to 170 over No. 19-ranked Villanova. (Pre-Nationals results)
More of the country’s top teams opted to race the Nuttycombe Invitational the same day in Madison, Wisconsin. Around 3.5K into the race, NC State’s Grace Hartman started to push the pace, and only Longisa went with her. Around 4.8K, Hartman pulled away from Longisa for good and held on to win, running 19:30.1 on the 6K course.
Her teammate, Angelina Napoleon, hung back a bit earlier in the race, but she caught Longisa in the closing stages. Exactly one month after she finished ninth in the steeplechase at the world championships, Napoleon took second at Nuttycombe in 19:34.6. Longisa, who ran track for Washington State last winter and spring but is in her first season of collegiate cross country, took third in 19:39.2. Prior to coming to the U.S., Longisa was part of the Nala Track Club, the team for up-and-coming Kenyan women founded by Mary Ngugi-Cooper in the wake of Agnes Tirop’s murder.
No. 2-ranked NC State put five runners in the top 18 and dominated the team race, scoring 41. An impressive Notre Dame squad, led by Mary Bonner Dalton (fourth) and Amaya Aramini (eighth) took second with 125 points. (Nuttycombe results | Race replay)
In other NCAA action, running unattached, Columbia grad Phoebe Anderson, who will be using the remainder of her eligibility at NC State, won UVA’s Panorama Farms Invitational, running 20:00.3 for 6K. (Results) Texas A&M Corpus Christi’s Elizabeth Khatevi won the Arturo Barrios Invitational, running 18:56.1 for 6K. (Results) And South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra won the Alabama Crimson Classic, running 18:40.3 for about 5.8K. (Results)
Other News
On January 10, Tallahassee, Florida, will host the World Cross Country Championships. It’s the first time in 34 years that the event has taken place in the U.S. and tickets are available here. There are also various community fun run options.
I finally had a chance to watch this 14-minute video from Salomon about China’s Yao Miao, who is one of the world’s best trail runners, and it’s very powerful.
I’ve occasionally thought that for someone who has been around running events for a very long time, I should be better at cheering. It truly is an art, and some of us are better artists than others. So I found this Outside article from Alex Hutchinson, about the science of cheering, to be entertaining. Most of the advice is common sense, and I appreciate that he emphasized that different things work for different people. This part made me laugh, both because I’ve done it and been annoyed by other people doing it: “Unhelpful cheering included…exhortations to dig deep when the runner already felt they were digging as deep as possible.”
Hannah Borenstein wrote a nice piece for Citius Mag about Chicago Marathon champion Hawi Feysa of Ethiopia and her experience serving as Feysa’s translator at the race.
It was nice to see Essence feature Nnenna Lynch, the first woman and first Black person to serve as chair of New York Road Runners’ Board of Directors.
Kaarin Knudson, 49, first made a name for herself in Eugene, Oregon, as a top runner for the University of Oregon, where she earned All-America honors in both the 800m and 1500m. And last year, she was elected mayor of Eugene. But shortly after she took office, she found out she had breast cancer for the second time. This is a good article about her journey and her decision to share her experience.
Vicente Leiva-Modahl, who served as a coach and agent for some of the world’s best runners, is facing 19 different sexual assault charges.
Additional Results
A pair of Ethiopian 21-year-olds, Aynalem Desta and Bertukan Welde, went 1-2 at the Amsterdam Marathon running an impressive 2:17:37 and 2:17:56, respectively. Desta, shaved 4:34 off of her personal best and Welde PRed by 2:59. Ethiopian women swept the top six spots. (Results | World Athletics’ recap)
Great Britain’s Sarah Webster won the 24-Hour World Championships, held in Albi, France, and set a world record in the process. She covered 278.622K (173.127 miles), averaging 8:19/mile for a full day. Japan’s Miho Nakata held the previous record, which Webster surpassed by more than five miles. (More from iRunFar | Results)
Ethiopia’s Shure Demise won the Toronto Waterfront Marathon in 2:21:04, only five seconds off her personal best, which she set 10 years ago. Demise is returning to racing after a break to have her daughter two years ago. The race also served as the Canadian championship, which Rachel Hannah won in 2:33:47. (Results)
Cailie Hughes won the Victory 10K in Minneapolis, running 32:52. Her Minnesota Distance Elite teammate, Cailee Peterson, won the 5K in 16:23. (Results)
Italy’s Nadia Battocletti won the Corsa dei Castelli 10K in Trieste, Italy, running 32:52. (Results | Brief report)
Ethiopia’s Likina Amebaw won the 71º Cross Internacional Zornotza, an 8.7K cross country race, in 30:21. (Results)
Racing in rainy conditions, Shannon Smith won the Columbus Marathon in 2:42:55. (Results)
On October 12, Molly Huddle made her return to racing after having her second child. She won the Women’s Classic 5K in Providence, Rhode Island, running 17:27. (Results)
One day earlier, Rachel Smith, who is also in the midst of a postpartum return to racing, won the Soulstice Mountain Trail Run 30K outright, running 2:01:15. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
Australia’s Jessica Hull is always a good interview and, she was on the Podium Athletics podcast last week.
Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson doesn’t do many podcasts, so it was interesting to hear from her on The High Performance Podcast.
Courtney Dauwalter discussed her recent 2:49 marathon PR at the Twin Cities Marathon and announced she’s running the California International Marathon in December, on the Ali on the Run Show.
It was refreshing to hear from Germany’s Nina Engelhard, who recently won two titles at the World Mountain & Trail Running Championships, on The Freetrail Podcast. She has no social media presence, works full time, and raced worlds without a watch. It sounds like she is being approached by potential sponsors, but because she doesn’t want to be on social media or put herself out there more, she’s likely to turn them down and stick with what she’s doing.
Emily Venters discussed the many things that went wrong during her marathon debut on I’ll Have Another. She stopped at a medical tent, where the staff did a blood draw and based on how she looked, the medical professionals staffing the tent held her for a while. She eventually convinced them to let her go, but at that point, the elite fluid stations had been cleared from the course, and she was carrying none of her own fuel. She took what she could along the way, and convinced someone selling soda to give her a Coke. The course was also packed with runners, and around 21 miles, there was a Biofreeze zone, where someone else’s spray got in her eye. She made another brief stop at a medical tent late in the race before ultimately finishing the race in 3:26, roughly an hour later than she expected. I was surprised to see Venters back at it at yesterday’s Toronto Waterfront Marathon. I initially thought she was racing it, but it turns out she was pacing the first half.
Natosha Rogers was on C Tolle Run (starting around 35:00), where she discussed her Chicago Marathon experience, her struggles with nausea while training and racing, and based on her comments, I wouldn’t be shocked if she popped up at another marathon this year, but it didn’t sound like anything was at all definite. “I didn’t run to my full potential time-wise,” she said.
I enjoyed learning more about recent Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Anna Kenig-Ziesler on D3 Glory Days. She played soccer for the University of Chicago and didn’t take up running until three years ago, at the end of her college career. It took her less than a year of racing to become a Division III All American, and now she’s making similarly quick progress on the roads.
Mangonada is one of my favorite running podcasts these days. Hosts Carolina Rubio-MacWright and Vanessa Chavarriaga Posada talk running while not shying away from discussing some of the serious things happening in the U.S. right now. The latest episode is available here.
Additional Episodes: Elise Cranny on The Fueling Forward Podcast | Gabi Rooker on Road to the Trials | Jenny Simpson on NYRR’s Set the Pace podcast (starting at 26:00 mark) | Jess McClain on The Running Effect Podcast
In preparing for my conversation with Maria Lindberg, I realized that I last interviewed her 23 years ago. I also photographed many of her college races. So writing this week’s newsletter felt like a nice full-circle moment, and I appreciate her willingness to share her story.
Thanks so much to Bakline for their multi-month support of Fast Women. (Remember to use the code fastwomen for 20 percent off!) And thank you, also, to all of you who help keep this newsletter going with your support via Venmo and Patreon.
I hope you all have a good week.
Alison
Because of an outage, this morning's newsletter went out about an hour late. The version scheduled for 5:00 a.m. was still in the queue, and in attempt to stop this from going out twice, I apparently deleted the web version. But I have recreated it here. Apparently it means that if you try to reply to this morning's email, your message just disappears into the abyss. Happy Monday 😀
But also, it was really fun to write about Maria Lindberg, after losing track of what she was up to for nearly 20 years.
What an inspiring story!