Fast Women: Molly Grabill's marathon breakthrough

Allie Buchalski and Kayley DeLay go 1–2 at the Club XC Championships.

Issue 328

Molly Grabill finishes 13th at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. (Photo by Amy Roberts)

Molly Grabill runs 2:26 while working full-time

Earlier this month at the Valencia Marathon, Molly Grabill ran a personal best of 2:26:46. She was excited to run a fast time, but even more than that, she was pleased with the way she executed the race. It was the first time she was able to enjoy running a marathon.

“Until now, the second half was always a death march,” she told Fast Women. “That never deterred me from running them, but now I know it doesn’t have to be this really tough, horrible thing.” 

She ran the first half of the race in 1:13:43 and the second half in 1:13:03, with her fastest miles at the end of the race. The biggest changes Grabill made were to her fueling and her strength training. Instead of taking a gel every 10K as she had in the past, she took one every 5K. And she focused on doing more strength work at the gym, because she felt that her strength had been a limiting factor.

For someone who had never enjoyed a marathon before, Grabill, 32, still had an impressive resume. She finished 25th at the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2020 and improved to 13th in 2024. Prior to Valencia, her personal best was the 2:29:17 that she ran at the 2021 California International Marathon. In the shorter distances, she represented the U.S. in the half marathon at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in 2023, where she finished 13th, and she has run 31:49.01 for 10,000m and 15:22.97 for 5,000m.

Grabill’s accomplishments put her in elite company, but they haven’t been enough for her to secure a sponsorship deal, or even guarantee her a spot on the starting line of the marathons she would like to run. She’s hoping her run in Valencia will help with the latter.

“A very expensive hobby”

Grabill finished her collegiate career for the University of Oregon in 2016 and did what many aspiring pros did at that time—she took on a handful of part-time jobs, while trying to live the lifestyle of a high-level athlete. “But I wasn’t making any money running and I wasn’t making any money working,” she said. “So that helped me shift my mentality and my approach. I think unless you hit it hot out of college, or at any transition point, most companies aren’t really going to be that excited about you.”

Grabill, who is based in Superior, Colorado, now works full-time as a project manager for Connect for Health Colorado, an organization that helps Coloradans get access to health care. She also coaches 8–10 athletes at any given time through RISE Coaching. (“It’s the greatest side hustle,” she said. “You get to share the joy of running with people.”) And in the gaps, she does the training required to be a high-level distance runner.

Grabill does not have an agent, but she enlisted the help of Hawi Keflezighi to secure her spot on the starting line in Valencia. While she has mostly figured out how to get into the shorter road races she wants to run, getting into the marathons without an agent is still tough.

In Valencia, Grabill was considered part of the sub-elite field, which meant she got a free race entry, and she had bottle service—the opportunity to fuel with the fluids of her choice—along the course. She was impressed by how well organized the fueling stations were and, in general, thought the race lived up to the hype. But between her flight, hotel, and meals, she spent about $3,000 to race there. “This is a very expensive hobby for me,” she said.

Grabill said that if her primary goal was to make money through running, she could be more strategic about which road races she runs, and she could stick to races where her travel costs would be covered. That’s not her aim. “I do it because I love it, and I want to be the best that I can be,” she said. Any support she can get along the way would be a bonus.

An act of violence alters her path

Running for San Diego’s Rancho Bernardo High School, success came relatively easy to Grabill. She won California state titles in cross country and track, she finished 28th at the World Junior Cross Country Championships in 2011, and she was 12th at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships as a junior and ninth as a senior.

Grabill thinks she ran about 30–40 miles per week, but she didn’t track her training or pay much attention to what other athletes were doing. “I would just show up to a race and do my best,” she said. “I just had a lot of fun with my friends, and I feel like that’s the most important part of the high school experience.”

Her first year at Oregon was eye-opening, as she realized how hard she was going to work if she was going to contribute to the team and be competitive in the NCAA. She went from being one of the top high school runners in the country to fighting for a spot in Oregon’s top seven in cross country. Her teammates approached the sport with a level of professionalism she hadn’t seen before. 

She redshirted cross country her sophomore year, and that season Oregon won the 2012 NCAA Cross Country Championships, led by Jordan Hasay and Alexi Pappas. 

Nine days later, Grabill was driving a teammate back to campus after Thanksgiving break when a man threw a rock from an overpass on Interstate 5. It smashed through the windshield of Grabill’s car, hit her in the face, and she lost consciousness. Her passenger, Chris Brewer, grabbed the steering wheel, but he was unable to gain control of the car, which overturned.

Both were fortunate to survive the crash, but Grabill suffered a broken jaw, fractured and lost teeth, and a traumatic brain injury, which forced her to take months off from school and running. Grabill says the TBI was the hardest to deal with; she suffered memory loss and dizzy spells. To this day, certain things can trigger the dizziness. 

It took eight months before Grabill began to feel more like herself. “There were times when I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is going to be the rest of my life.’” And having an invisible injury was hard, because she looked okay on the outside, despite her struggles.

At the end of that academic year, Grabill said that Oregon’s coaching staff informed her that they were cutting her scholarship significantly. She recalls being told that if she could finish in the top three at the NCAA championships, they would put her back at their initial level of support.

Grabill was able to resume running the summer following the crash. And at the 2014 UW Husky Classic, roughly 14 months after the crash, Grabill ran a big personal best of 16:01.91 for 5,000m, a time that would qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships at the time. “The whole coaching staff and the whole Oregon team was so excited for me,” Grabill said. “That was such a cool memory.”

At the 2015 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Grabill earned her highest NCAA finish, placing fourth in the 10,000m. She scored five points and helped Oregon win the national title. But because she fell short of the third-place target, her scholarship was never restored to its previous level.

In 2021, the news broke that former members of Oregon’s track & field program accused Robert Johnson, who was then the school’s head cross country and track & field coach, of body shaming. The following spring, Johnson’s contract was not renewed. Grabill said the accusations were in line with her experience at Oregon. 

“If you go to any DI program, they’re going to tell you that if you want to run well and fast, you have to be really mindful with your workouts and your miles, and how you treat your body, and nutrition is a big part of that,” she said. “But how they communicated that was the big problem. I was constantly told that I was overweight and that I was fat. So I feel very fortunate that I have made it to the other side without everlasting issues. I think that is a problem in many places and we don’t know how to talk to people in a healthy way.”

Grabill recalls coaches giving her a 15-pound weight and saying, “Imagine you put this weight in a backpack and go for a run. Do you think you can run your fastest 5K with this in your backpack?” And she would go in the “bod pod,” which has a 1–3 percent margin of error in measuring body composition, and her body fat would be 25 percent. “I would be told, ‘Well, you’re one-fourth fat,’” she said. “I would be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m fat.’”

Grabill says that she definitely underfueled during college as a result. After a rough final college race, she took a long break from running. “When I came back to it in the fall, I was just like, ‘I’m not doing that anymore.’” Now she doesn’t restrict her food intake. “I think with marathon training, you can’t have a long career if you take [a restrictive] approach,” she said. “I feel lucky that I have a healthy relationship with food. But there was definitely a time in my life where I was just hungry all the time. It was horrible, and I was probably horrible to be around.”

She credits her Oregon teammates for helping her get through that time, and she appreciates that the throwers, jumpers, sprinters, and distance runners were all supportive of one another. “Having teammates who would validate you was really helpful,” she said. “You’re all experiencing the same thing.”

Balancing career and training

Grabill’s run in Valencia helped her end 2024 on a high note, but it’s been a year of ups and downs. Late in 2023, she was laid off from her previous job. Initially she saw it as a blessing in disguise, because it helped her go all-in on running leading up to the Olympic Marathon Trials. But post-Trials, she began to feel directionless and depressed. “A happy runner is a fast runner,” she said. “And I don’t think I was super happy during that time.”

She spent a lot of time applying for jobs, but some companies lost interest when she told them that she would need three weeks off during the summer. Her partner, Morgan Pearson, was preparing to represent the U.S. in triathlon at the Paris Olympic Games, and because no one was allowed to go to the 2021 Olympic Games due to the pandemic, she wasn’t missing this one. She eventually found a job and was still able to make the trip to Paris, where she supported Pearson and watched a variety of Olympic sports, including track & field. Pearson earned his second-consecutive silver medal in the mixed relay, and Grabill came home inspired.

Grabill is coached by former top U.S. runner Ric Rojas, and she often trains with his daughter Nell Rojas, who is a fellow professional runner. Their schedules didn’t align much during the buildup to Valencia, but Grabill says one of the upsides to living in the Boulder area is that when she wants company, she can usually find someone to run with.

In the spring, Grabill would like to focus on some shorter races, but first she’s going to spend a little more time riding her current marathon high. She would love for 2025 to be the year that she finally gets into the Chicago Marathon’s elite field. And longer term, she has her eye on running the Olympic Marathon Trials again in 2028. “I think I just want to see how fast I can run and just bring the best out of myself,” she said.

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Chloe Jarvis at the 2003 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships

Other News and Links

• Former Cal middle-distance runner Chloe Jarvis, 42, passed away last week after a long battle with breast cancer. Jarvis won the 2005 Pac-10 800m title, raced at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials, and had a 800m best of 2:03.61. She went on to become a model, musician, and mother, among many other things. You can read more about her time at Cal in this article from 2016. Alysia Montaño, who overlapped with Jarvis at Cal, posted a touching tribute to her on Instagram.

• Ruth Chepngetich’s world record of 2:09:56, set at the Chicago Marathon in October, had been ratified. I don’t think that’s going to do much to quiet the naysayers, but it does mean her post-race drug test was clean.

• Following her strong run at CIM, Jackie Gaughan did a Q&A with Citius Mag’s Jasmine Fehr. I was surprised to read that Gaughan had never fueled mid-marathon before and, spoiler alert, it helped.

• Two YouTube videos I enjoyed this week: FloTrack filmed a New Balance Boston workout, and Allie Ostrander talked about how much prize money she won racing in 2024. The grand total was $8,743.67. It’s a good thing she has sponsors and her YouTube income as well. As Molly Grabill pointed out above, one can pick and choose their races to maximize prize money, but many pros in the U.S. do not. Emma Grace Hurley mostly stuck to the roads in 2024, and she earned $17,550 running USATF Running Circuit races, plus another $30,000 for winning the overall circuit title.

• Following her record-setting run on the Appalachian Trial, Tara Dower has signed a contract (Outside) believed to be worth between $100,000 and $250,000 per year. (That’s a pretty big range.) The contract will allow her to focus on ultrarunning full time, and the article says it could be one of the biggest contracts in ultrarunning history.

• Marta Pen Freitas of the Brooks Beasts talked to Cindy Kuzma about moving forward with her athletic career while dealing with breast cancer.

• There are some touching details in this article about BYU winning the national title in cross country.

• Some former University of Pennsylvania throwers have accused their coaches of sexual harassment and mistreatment. The coaching staff’s handling of the athletes’ complaints, as described in the article, doesn’t come off well.

Texas junior Elizabeth Leachman repeats as Foot Locker Cross Country champion.

Results Highlights

• Running in tough conditions, Brooks Beasts Allie Buchalski and Kayley DeLay went 1–2 at the USATF Club Cross Country Championships in University Place, Washington, covering the 6K course in 20:27.3 and 20:29.5, respectively. Twins Megan and Bethany Hasz, of the B.A.A. High Performance Team, finished third and fourth with identical times of 20:34.5. And Emma Bates dropped down in distance and finished fifth in 20:37.5. Minnesota Distance Elite edged out Hansons-Brooks for the team title, 42 to 46. Carrie Dimoff won the masters race, which was also 6K, in 22:39.1. And it was 75-year-old Jeanette Groesz who topped the age-graded results with a 31:13, which is 8:23 per mile. (All results)

• Texas junior Elizabeth Leachman made a move around halfway and ran away from the field at the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships, winning in 17:31.10. At the end of a tough year during which she dealt with a stress reaction in her femur over the summer and illness during the cross country season, Leachman found a way to repeat as champion. She is the first back-to-back champion on the girls’ side since Claudia Lane in 2017, and only the fifth overall. No one has ever won three in a row, but Leachman is only a junior. Leachman has been starting her races more conservatively this year, and a half mile into the race, she was in 27th place (though only 4.3 seconds behind the leader). She moved up to 13th by the mile (6.2 seconds back) and joined the lead group around halfway. Melody Fairchild’s course record of 16:39, from 1990, is safe for yet another year. A week after finishing second at NXN, Michigan senior Victoria Garces earned another runner-up finish, running 17:39.9. New York senior Zariel Macchia finished third in 17:49.6. (Race replay | Highlight video | Results)

• Rose Davies won a tactical 10,000 at the Australian 10,000m Championships in 32:31.71. Taylor Werner, the lone non-Australian in the race, finished fifth in 32:47.53. (Results | Race replay) At the same event, Australia’s Linden Hall won the 3,000m, which wasn’t a national championship event, in 8:43.02. (Results | Race replay)

• Ethiopia’s Sutume Kebede won the Kolkata World 25K for the second year in a row, running 1:19:21 (5:06.5/mile for 15.5 miles). She said afterward that she was hoping to break the 1:18:47 course record she set last year, but she was tired from traveling. (Results)

• Making a strong debut at the distance, Kenya’s Catherine Reline Amanang’ole, 22, won the Abu Dhabi Marathon in 2:20:34. (Results)

• The Spectacle Road Mile appears to be New Zealand’s version of Hawaii’s Kalakaua Merrie Mile—a road mile with an equalizer component. Just like last week’s race in Hawaii, the women were given a 32-second head start, and Australia’s Georgia Griffith, who ran 4:35.97, was the first woman across the finish line, placing third overall. (Race Results Weekly’s recap)

• I missed this one last week—Natosha Rogers won the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio Half Marathon in 1:09:49.

• Obsie Birru won the Tucson Marathon in 2:40:18, and Canada’s Rachel Hannah won the half marathon in 1:13:05. (Results)

• Laura Pifer, 40, won the Jacksonville Marathon in 2:45:00. For some reason, she is listed as being 60 in the results, but she is not. (Results)

• France’s Stéphanie Gicquel won the Desert Solstice 24-hour track race, covering 154.8 miles. Women took five of the top six spots. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Sara Hall recapped her year, and her 2:23:45 at the Valencia Marathon, on the Ali on the Run Show. It was fun to hear her talk about her potential interest in college coaching.

• Amanda Vestri discussed her 1:08:12 half marathon debut on the Citius Mag podcast. Because she injured her piriformis in the fall, Vestri had been back to running for only a little over a month when she raced the half, and she said she really only did about two hard workouts prior to the race. She also said that she got Covid heading into the Olympic Trials 10,000m, and she thinks she overdid things in her last hard workout before the race. As of now, she’s planning to race January’s Houston Half, the USATF Half Marathon Championships at the beginning of March, and the 10,000m at Sound Running’s The Ten at the end of March.

• On I’ll Have Another, Stephanie Bruce discussed her 2:28:41 at the California International Marathon and parting ways with Hoka and NAZ Elite.  “It’s not necessarily how I saw it ending, but that is the running industry,” she said. Bruce said she’s looking for brands to work with going forward and she’s far from done in the sport. She said she’s also contemplating whether she should reopen her coaching business, and whether she’ll be doing more grit and growth retreats or adult running camps. “I am a twister and a tornado of ideas and actions over these next couple of weeks,” she said. 

Additional Episodes: Georgetown’s Fiona Max discussed performance anxiety and perfectionism on The Lane 9 Podcast | MIT’s top seven runners discussed winning a national title on D3 Glory Days | Distance running pioneer Sara Mae Berman was on Starting Line 1928

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That’s all for this week, and we’re now heading into some quieter weeks for racing, but I imagine there’s still some big running news to come.

If you’re in the market for a new training log and/or planner, make sure to check out the Wild Strides Training Log + Planner, created by Grayson Murphy. There’s something different about writing your training down, and this is the training log I have used for the past several years. It’s great, plus I always enjoy supporting pro athletes’ side hustles.

Thanks to all of you who help keep Fast Women going with your support on Patreon and Venmo, and I hope you all have a great week!

Alison