Fast Women: Kelati leads the way on the year's biggest day of racing
Jessica Gall Myrick found success in the sport, even after the adults around her failed.
Issue 383
Weini Kelati wins her fifth-straight Manchester Road Race title
Weini Kelati has become a fixture at Connecticut’s 4.737-mile Manchester Road Race. She made her debut at the event in 2021 and set a course record of 22:55, and since then, she’s been unstoppable in Manchester. On Thursday, she led from the gun and won by 50 seconds, running 23:18 (4:55/mile) in windy conditions, and becoming the first woman to win five consecutive titles.
Kelati is now tied with Amy Rudolph for the most titles by a woman in Manchester, but Rudolph’s wins weren’t consecutive. Kelati earned $7,000 for the win, plus another $1,000 for being the first woman to the top of the race’s monster hill. Great Britain’s Hannah Nuttall took second (24:08), and Taylor Werner was third (24:23).
Next up, Kelati (and Werner) will race Saturday’s USATF Cross Country Championships in Portland, Oregon, where the top six finishers will qualify to represent the U.S. at January’s World Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee. And on the race broadcast, Ian Brooks said that Kelati also plans to run the Barcelona Half Marathon on February 15. (Results)
Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year for road racing in the U.S. The following is an non-comprehensive list of some top runners who excelled at their races. With so many people running so fast these days, I had to make my criteria for inclusion more strict this year!
Emma Grace Hurley impressed in Indianapolis at the Wheeler Mission Drumstick Dash, running 20:49 (4:50/mile) for 4.3 miles. She was only seven seconds away from the outright win. She, too, will be racing the USATF Cross Country Championships on Saturday.
Makenna Myler, who will also be at Saturday’s race, won the Dana Point (CA) Turkey Trot 10K in 32:12.
Sammy McClintock won the Sedona (AZ) Turkey Trot 5K in 15:51.
Allie Ostrander was a repeat winner at the Boulder (CO) Thanksgiving Day 5K, running 16:08.
Rachael Rudel won the Fort Collins (CO) Thanksgiving Day Run, covering four miles at altitude in 21:02.
Rachel McArthur won Virginia’s Prince William 5K Turkey Trot in 15:58.
Gabbi Jennings repeated as champion of the NOAC Turkey Day 5-Mile in New Orleans, running 26:27.
Peru’s Mica Rivera Wood, who is getting ready to run The Marathon Project, ran 21:28 (roughly) for four miles at the Earn Your Turkey race in Ogden, Utah. (I failed to find the results.)
Tessa Barrett tuned up for the California International Marathon by winning the Alexandria (VA) Turkey Trot 5 Miler in 26:42.
Gillian Meeks won the 5K at Sacramento’s Run to Feed the Hungry in 16:05, and Olivia O’Kelly won the 10K in 33:49.
Allie Schaich won Denver’s Mile High United Way Turkey Trot, running four miles in 21:40.
Makena Morley won Bozeman, Montana’s Huffing for Stuffing 5K outright, running 16:33.
Ireland’s Anika Thompson won the Eugene (OR) Turkey Trot in 16:15.
Ann Marie Pierce won North Carolina’s Cape Fear Habitat Turkey Trot 5K in 16:19.
Rachel Anderson won Minneapolis’ Turkey Day 5K in 16:23.
Eva Jess won the Iron Turkey 5K in El Paso, Texas, running 16:30.
Jenn Randall won Springfield, Oregon’s Turkey Stuffer 5K in 16:32.
Kylie Finger won the Milwaukee (WI) Turkey Trot 5K in 16:33.
Jennifer Lichter won the Missoula (MT) Turkey Day 8K in 27:09.
Allie Kieffer won the Austin (TX) Turkey Trot 5 Mile in 27:12.
Rachel Schilkowsky won Massachusetts’ Whitin Five Mile Race in 27:33.
Danielle Orie won the YMCA Buffalo (NY) Turkey Trot 8K in 27:29.
Addy Wiley won the Pathfinder Early Learning Center Turkey Trot, in Huntington, Indiana, in 16:59.
Dot McMahan, 49, and her daughter El McMahan, 16, went 1-2 at the Mighty Gobbler 5K in Troy, Michigan, both running 17:22.
Jessica Gall Myrick: Succeeding in running even after the adults around her failed
This is part five in an ongoing series about how runners’ relationships with the sport evolve over time. (Here are parts one, two, three, and four)
Jessica Gall Myrick’s talent and work ethic have taken her far in running. At West Lafayette High School in Indiana, she won state titles in cross country and track. She went on to Indiana University, where she was a three-time All-American and a Big Ten champion, and after college, she qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.
Some of the athletes she beat in college became Olympians or had long professional running careers. It’s tempting for Gall Myrick to imagine what could have been. But at every stage of her running career, she encountered challenges that were out of her control, some of which still affect her today.
This is a story about a talented runner who achieved excellence. But it’s also a story about what happens when the adults responsible for protecting young athletes fail to do so—and how the consequences of an under-resourced collegiate program can have a lasting impact.
Early success, and early harm
In high school, Gall Myrick played a variety of sports. Being from Indiana, her first love was basketball, but distance running came naturally to her. During her senior year, she earned two state titles and qualified for the 2001 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships, where she finished 21st.
But at the same time, her cross country coach was molesting her, something she didn’t fully grasp at first. Her parents had gone through a difficult divorce, her mother was living in another state, and she and her sister were being raised by their father, who was grateful when the coach offered to give her rides to and from practice. When Gall Myrick finally understood what was happening, she was horrified.
Another school employee witnessed the abuse one day and reported it. School officials suggested to Gall Myrick that if the story got out, it might hurt her chances of getting a college scholarship. They knew how important a scholarship would be for her family, and they suggested that they could keep an eye on her coach so she could finish the year and move on, and he could continue coaching.
At the time, the logic made sense to her, so she did her best to put it behind her. The experience affected her college decision in two ways: She knew she wanted to get out of town, and she strongly preferred being coached by a woman.
She had scholarship offers from Michigan State, Purdue, and Vanderbilt, but all of them had male coaches. She clicked with Indiana University’s coach, Judy Wilson, and accepted a full scholarship offer from the school. The program was struggling at the time, but Wilson sold her on the idea of helping build something.
Succeeding in an under-resourced program
At Indiana University, Gall Myrick recalls Wilson doing her best to support her and her teammates, without a lot of support from the administration. Gall Myrick now suspects she had a stress fracture in her femur at the end of her freshman year, but the athletic training staff decided she didn’t need an MRI, partially because the treatment—rest—would be the same either way. Later, when she hurt her shoulder and neck in the weight room, she was allowed to get an MRI, which the team doctor said was negative. Only after graduation, when she saw an orthopedist not affiliated with IU, did she learn her medical records indicated she had a bulging disc in her neck, which still affects her today.
The women’s cross country and track teams shared their locker room, which had a fly and rat problem, with the field hockey team. The men had their own locker room, which could be accessed from outside the building, so they were able to shower after their Sunday long runs, when the building was closed. If the women were lucky, the men would sneak them into the building so they could access their own locker room. Across the hallway, the baseball team was living in luxury.
Gall Myrick’s experiences inspired her to become heavily involved in the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). First she became president of IU’s SAAC, and then the Big Ten SAAC her fifth year of college. “I spent a lot of time pushing for equity across non revenue sports and women’s sports,” she told Fast Women. But not everyone appreciated that.
“At one point, the team doctor told me I was just so type A,” she said. “And if I would just relax and wasn’t always pressing the issue about resources for student-athletes and calm down, then [my shoulder and neck] would be fine.”
Despite the challenges, Gall Myrick helped elevate the program, becoming a two-time All-American in cross country and helping the team qualify for nationals. During her fifth year, at the start of the indoor season, IU’s director of track and field abruptly resigned. Gall Myrick won her first Big Ten title in the 10,000m outdoors, and soon after, the team learned that Ron Helmer, a distance coach, would take over as director. That meant that Wilson and men’s coach Robert Chapman needed to find new jobs.
Gall Myrick said that because of the impending change, IU did not want to pay to send her coach, Wilson, to nationals with her, but Gall Myrick insisted, and they did. In her final college race, she earned her first All-America honor on the track, in the 10,000m.
She wanted to keep running post-collegiately, but there were fewer options at the time. She looked into joining Team USA Minnesota (now Minnesota Distance Elite), but she was concerned about her career options there. Chapman was starting a new pro team in Bloomington called Team Indiana Elite. It was sponsored by Brooks, and they wanted to have a women’s team, too. But she and Dani (Prince) Cook were the only two women on the team. They received coaching, housing, gear, and some assistance getting into races. To cover her other expenses, Gall Myrick worked full-time for the IU School of Journalism.
She finished second at the 2007 Columbus Marathon and qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. But the training was not a fit for her. She developed hip and groin pain, and struggled to get the medical support she needed. In 2010, frustrated that she couldn’t get healthy, she decided to go back to graduate school and work toward a Ph.D. in Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina.
Taking a step back from running and enrolling in her graduate program actually gave her greater access to medical care. A doctor at UNC diagnosed her with a labral tear, and she had surgery to repair that and a bone spur in the same hip. Her surgeon told her her marathoning days were likely over. For years, Gall Myrick clung to the hope that she could get back into it—and she did briefly—but never near the same level.
Reconciling with the sport
For a while, it was hard for Gall Myrick to see athletes she had raced against doing big things in the sport. She grieved the missed opportunity. “I was not an NCAA champion,” she said. “I wasn’t crushing it, but I was there, and I had potential. And I felt like if I could have just stayed healthy, like had enough medical support and time that I maybe could have done it.”
For stretches of her life, Gall Myrick was able to push her high school experience to the back of her mind. But she began developing urticaria (hives) every time she ran, which she believes was due to stress. “I think it was a residual effect of not really dealing with what happened and trying to just keep moving on to the next thing in life,” she said.
But coverage of the Larry Nassar case and the #MeToo movement caused her to revisit her high school experience. At the end of 2018, she wrote an op-ed for her hometown newspaper, encouraging parents to talk to student-athletes about sexual abuse. And she shared her personal experience on Facebook, with the hope that it would benefit others.
Upon learning that her former coach was still volunteering with the high school teams, Gall Myrick expressed her concern to administrators at her alma mater, but little changed. On a visit to the school, she saw there were multiple photos of her on the wall. “They hold me and my athletic experience up as this great example,” she said. “You see all these things about girl power and doing sports. But there’s still real reticence to admit, statistically, how many girls and women are being sexually abused in sport, and that frustrates me.”
Years earlier, in 2010, she was inducted into the Indiana Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches’ Hall of Fame. During the ceremony, her abuser, who is also in the hall of fame, sat next to her. When it was her turn to speak, she read a light poem. “It was the only way I could get up there and say anything without screaming or crying,” she said. “In retrospect, it’s upsetting that I didn’t have a chance to say what I actually wanted to say, because I felt like I needed to maintain the peace.”
These days, Gall Myrick, now 41, finds herself going through cycles of loving the sport and needing to take a step back, because she sees something that reminds her of her past experiences. She has three young children—two 4.5-year-old sons and a 6-year-old daughter who loves to run—and she’s already thinking about how she can help increase the chances that the sport is safe for her.
Gall Myrick spent more than a decade as a communications professor at Penn State. She specialized in media psychology and health, science, and environmental communication research, which included work on how women’s sports are portrayed. This year, she made a big change and moved back to Indiana, where she’s working as a senior clinical scientist for Cook Research Incorporated. She’s still busy, but the career shift has given her a little more time to run.
Gall Myrick is still able to find joy in the sport. She recalls a recent four-mile run, where she ran faster than usual in the final mile. She was proud of herself for not comparing it to past runs, and she felt better the rest of the day. “It was a great reminder that you don’t have to be a Big Ten champion or a professional athlete to get that feeling,” she said.
Despite everything, she carries a lot of great memories from the sport. “I do think a lot about what I might do differently,” she said. “But I’ve never once regretted following running as far as it could take me… The lessons I learned and the time I got to spend with teammates was definitely worth it.”
Being back in Indiana has also given Gall Myrick the chance to reconnect with one of her former IU teammates, who coaches at the local high school. They meet up to run a couple times per week, and their renewed friendship—and hearing about the high school team—have helped restore her faith that there are a lot of good people and coaches in the sport.
Gall Myrick keeps a newspaper clipping from when she won the Big Ten 10,000m title, which includes a quote from Wilson about her mental toughness. She looks at it often, and it reminds her of the inner strength she developed both through training, and by persevering through the challenges she faced at every level of the sport. And she knows that strength is still part of who she is.
Other News and Links
I appreciated learning more about Jamaica’s Michka-Mae Hyde from the Jamaica Observer. When she ran 2:35:28 in her debut at the Philadelphia Marathon, she took more than 33 minutes off the Jamaican marathon record. She also holds the half marathon record. After maxing out at 800m in college, Hyde, 24, has really taken to distance running in the short time that she’s been at it.
Italy’s Laura Pellicoro, who had a strong collegiate career at the University of Portland, has signed with the Brooks Beasts.
The Athletic (paywall) reported last week that Grand Slam Track has sent letters to vendors telling them they need to accept half of what they are owed, or the league risks going into bankruptcy. All vendors would need to agree to the deal for any of them to receive their share, and their deadline is December 5. But The Times (UK) reported that World Athletics has rejected the offer and told GST that it needs to pay the athletes what they are owed first. And in a follow-up piece, Matt Lawton reported that if GST files for bankruptcy, athletes could be forced to give back the money they’ve already been paid. Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. But one of the biggest T&F-related surprises of 2025 has been what a disaster this has all turned out to be.
McGill University in Montreal announced last week that it will be cutting 25 teams across 15 sports at the end of the current academic year, including men’s and women’s track & field. And Simon Fraser University, the only Canadian school in the NCAA (they are DII), announced that they are applying for U Sports membership, with the hope of leaving the NCAA. Because U Sports does not have an outdoor track & field championship, SFU plans to cut their women’s and men’s outdoor teams as of the 2027-28 academic year.
Additional Results
Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei won the Shanghai Marathon in 2:16:36, the fastest time a woman has ever run in China. (Report)
Ceili McCabe dominated the Canadian Cross Country Championships, winning the 10K race by 56 seconds, in 32:57.3. (Report | Results)
High school kids are so fast these days, so I was impressed that Steph Bruce, 41, had the fastest time of the day at NXR Southwest on November 22. Running in the citizens’ race, she covered the 5K course in 16:29.3. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
I appreciated Emma Bates talking about the dangers of coaches giving nutrition advice on The Fueling Forward Podcast, and it was good to get an update from her in general.
I really enjoyed hearing from Swoosh TC coach Mike Smith on Fast People; it’s one of my favorite episodes we’ve put out so far.
Emily Durgin discussed moving to Boulder to be coached by Joan and Marc Hunter, on The HAX Show (Spotify only) and gave an overview of her pro journey so far.
Keira D’Amato was on C Tolle Run, and it sounds like her training for the Valencia Marathon has gone really well. She said her hip has been locking up from time to time, but as long as she can keep that at bay, she feels ready to have a great race.
Sara Hall, who is racing CIM, was on Hurdle. Host Emily Abbate pointed out she has improved her marathon time by nearly 30 minutes over the years and asked her, “What do you think is the secret sauce to that?” I appreciated Hall’s initial response: “Underperforming a lot in your first marathon.” (Hall debuted with a 2:48:02 at the 2015 LA Marathon.)
Additional Episodes: Molly Huddle on I’ll Have Another | Aisha Praught Leer on the Coffee Club podcast | Lucy Dobbs discussed running a marathon PR of 2:32, despite taking a pit stop, on Road to the Trials | Charlotte Purdue, who is running Valencia, on Podium Athletics | Trials qualifier Felicia Pasadyn on The Running Public | Great Britain’s Lucy Jones on The Marathon Podcast
Upcoming
The coming weekend is going to be packed with exciting races. Saturday’s USATF Cross Country Championships in Portland, Oregon, will take place alongside Nike Cross Nationals, and the USATF Masters Cross Country Championships will be held on the same course the following day. Both USATF events will stream live on USATF TV. Update: According to an email I received on Thursday, there will be a free live broadcast of all of the Saturday races on RunnerSpace.
The women’s 10K, in particular, should be great, as there’s quite a bit of depth in the field. You can see who’s entered here, and use the tool at the top left to sort by event. (It’s been like this for years, but note how many more men are entered in each race. I feel like we’re not truly going to see how good U.S. women can be until we have similar depth at all events. But there are many societal factors at play.)
The same day most of the best distance runners in the NCAA will be racing at BU’s Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener, trying to knock out a fast 5,000m time (mostly). The entries aren’t out yet (the will be soon), but this FloTrack graphic indicates that most of the top runners will be there. The races will air live on FloTrack, and Lancer Timing will have the results.
Early Sunday morning in the U.S., a stellar field will be lining up for the Valencia Marathon. The pros start at (or around?) 2:15 a.m. ET, and there is usually a livestream on the race’s website. (But when I’m in a pinch and can’t find a stream, checking Watch Athletics sometimes helps.)
And at 10:00 a.m. ET on Sunday, the USATF Marathon Championships will take place at the California International Marathon in Sacramento. You can see the top entrants here, and there will be a livestream on USATF TV.
This week’s newsletter is brought to you by the kind readers who have supported Fast Women this year. It’s not easy keeping a project like this afloat, and it wouldn’t be possible without reader support. So I am forever thankful to those of you who have supported this newsletter via Venmo or Patreon.
I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison
Rachel Schilkowsky also set a new course record with her winning time at the Whitin Five! Old record was 27:51 from 1991.