Fast Women: Rachel McArthur's return

Kenya's Olympic marathon decision is a head-scratcher

May 06, 2024

Rachel McArthur after winning the USATF 1 Mile Road Championships. *(Photo by Jan Figueroa)*

Finally pain free, Rachel McArthur is excited to explore her potential

Rachel McArthur first began to grasp how fit she was when she hopped in a 5,000m race at William & Mary at the beginning of April. It was her first race back after undergoing surgery eight months earlier. Following instructions from coach Ben Thomas, she paced some Virginia Tech runners through 3K, and then picked up the pace. After averaging 3:15/kilometer for the first 3K, she averaged 2:59/kilometer for the last 2K. Despite treating the race as a workout, her winning time, 15:43.91, was a personal best by nearly 10 seconds.

Two weeks later, McArthur, 24, lined up for her first 1500m of the season, at the Wake Forest Invitational. The event attracted a mix of pro runners and top collegians; the only problem was that she didn’t get to race them. Though she and Thomas knew she belonged in the top heat, her 4:13.25 PR from 2021 landed her in the second-fastest heat, and they were unable to convince the meet organizers to make the switch.

Unfazed, McArthur followed rabbit Presley Weems early, before taking off in the second half. She won her heat by nearly four seconds, running 4:07.48, a massive PR. And then she got to watch the rest of the top 1500m runners duke it out in the next heat, where her time would have placed her fourth.

It wasn’t until the USATF 1 Mile Road Championships on April 23 in Des Moines, Iowa, that McArthur finally got to race athletes who could push her. The race couldn’t have gone better. McArthur kicked to a win, running 4:32.20, ahead of Anna Camp Bennett, who took second in 4:33.67. McArthur forgot the race was a national championship event until someone handed her an American flag. Five years after winning the USATF U20 1500m title, McArthur earned her first senior national title.

Four days later, McArthur and Camp Bennett raced again, in the 1500m at Drake Relays, also in Des Moines. That time Camp Bennett got the edge, winning 4:07.82 to 4:08.39. But in four races over the course of a month, McArthur showed that not only is she back after several years of struggle, she’s running at a new level.

An uneven collegiate career

McArthur says she didn’t train much in high school or take the sport seriously. “I don’t think I ever ran more than 20 minutes on my own,” she told Fast Women. “I just worked out.” But she had a lot of success. McArthur was a seven-time Virginia state champion for Patriot High School, won the 800m at New Balance Nationals Indoor and the Brooks PR Invitational as a senior in 2017, and she graduated with PRs of 2:05.68 (800m) and 4:41.67 (1600m).

McArthur began her college career at Villanova, and at first, she was hesitant to fully commit to the sport. “I thought, ‘I’m young, I have time,’” she said. At the end of her first year, she won her USATF U20 title and, as a sophomore, she helped her team finish fourth in the distance medley relay at the NCAA Indoor Championships, and she won the Mid-Atlantic Regional in cross country. But outside of running, McArthur wasn’t happy at Villanova, and she decided to transfer to the University of Colorado after her sophomore year.

At CU, McArthur started taking the sport more seriously. McArthur estimates that at most, she ran 40 miles per week at Villanova. At CU, a more distance-focused school, she averaged around 75 miles per week, sometimes more, and got to up to 100 a couple times over the summer. “That was sort of the culture,” she said. “But now that I have more experience, my motto for a lot of things is, ‘Just because you can does not mean you should.’”

McArthur is glad she experienced both ends of the spectrum, and now her training falls somewhere in the middle. She expects she’ll do more once she’s been back training for longer, but she’s currently running about 50 miles per week and doing a lot of cross training.

As a fifth-year senior, McArthur finished fourth in the NCAA indoor mile and earned All-America honors. But she was also running through pain in her heel every day. And around the time McArthur left CU in 2022, cross country and track & field coaches Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs, along with dietitian Laura Anderson, came under scrutiny for overemphasizing body composition, among other things. “I personally did not have as negative of an experience as a lot of people,” McArthur said. “But I 100 percent can understand why they did and I can completely see where the problems are.”

A tough start to post-collegiate running

After struggling through her final college race, McArthur spent some time at home in Northern Virginia, but after several months, she relocated to Eugene, Oregon, where her boyfriend, professional runner Cooper Teare, was based at the time. She hoped that she would be able to race well enough to get a pro contract, and then she could take some time to heal her injury.

“I was definitely in denial about a lot of different things, primarily because I knew that if I acknowledged how severe my injury was, I needed surgery, and I was not in the financial position to get it,” she said. McArthur had health insurance, but it would not cover the full cost of the surgery and PT.

During that time, McArthur did a lot of soul searching and questioned whether professional running was a realistic path for her. She leaned on Teare, her agent, Isaya Okwiya, and her family. McArthur ultimately decided she had too much potential to stop before she got a chance to push herself enough to see what she could really do.

And a conversation with Burroughs turned out to be the wake-up call McArthur needed. When she heard McArthur was still struggling with the same injury that plagued her at CU, Burroughs told her she needed surgery. And because she got injured at CU, CU would be responsible for covering her related medical expenses. (The NCAA protections for athletes in these types of cases will become even stronger in August.)

Getting all of the necessary approvals took time, but in early August, McArthur underwent Haglund’s deformity surgery in Denver. It took about a month for her to get back to walking. Thomas had begun coaching her at that point, and he was very cautious as he eased her back into running. “I was so frustrated some days,” she said. “He would say, ‘You can shuffle for 30 seconds and then walk for a minute,’ that sort of thing. So it was probably the slowest return to running I’ve ever heard of, honestly.”

Also during that time, McArthur and Teare made the decision to move to Blacksburg, Virginia, to follow Thomas, who had returned to coaching at Virginia Tech after five years in Oregon. In early November, with their pet rabbit, Hachi, in tow, they relocated to McArthur’s home state.

Team SOVA

In Blacksburg, McArthur is part of a new post-collegiate group called Team SOVA. The group has five members: McArthur, Teare, Cole Hocker, Aidan Tooker, and Matt Wisner. They currently have no plans to expand their roster, but when McArthur needs other women to train with, she hops in the Virginia Tech team’s workouts.

Thomas’ training is different from anything McArthur has done before. She describes it as wonky. “I always say if Ben emailed our schedule to a runner, they would have no idea what the training even says,” she said. “There’s just a lot of acronyms, a lot of broken up segments. You could have a workout day that’s like track workout, head to the hills, do hills, get on the Alter-G, get on the bike, go back to the hills. It’s just all over the place. On paper, it probably makes no sense. But, when you do it, you see why it works.”

She credits her recent success to her environment as well, saying that in Blacksburg, she has been able to establish a life outside of running. “I’m just much, much happier as a person,” she said. “I’m moving forward in my life, and I’m getting to pursue something I always wanted to pursue. I don’t feel this tremendous weight on my shoulders. It is a relief to just go to a meet and be really excited, and not sick to my stomach that I’m even there in the first place. It feels nice to enjoy it.”

McArthur has a small contract with Bandit where they cover some of her expenses, and she has done some modeling for them as well. But she’s free to move on if another company offers more support, which is the hope. She has also been working part-time at a local running store.

Thanks to her recent success, she’s no longer having trouble getting into meets. Next up, she plans to race at the LA Grand Prix on May 17 and the HOKA Festival of Miles on May 30. She has her eye on the Trials 1500m “A” standard of 4:06.00 and then seeing how fast she can go. She likes the idea of taking nearly 10 seconds off of her PR this year. “I love seeing the training translating over to the track,” she said. “I also just love when my friends, family, coach, and agent are happy. So it’s just really fun to do big things and then report back.”

Brigid Kosgei fell off the lead pack by 25K at the London Marathon, and she finished fifth in 2:19:02, nearly three minutes behind race winner Peres Jepchirchir. But she was selected to Kenya’s Olympic marathon squad anyway. *(Photo: Chloe Knott for London Marathon Events)*

What the heck, Athletics Kenya?

Kenya announced its Olympic Marathon squads last week and as expected, Boston champ Hellen Obiri and London champ Peres Jepchirchir made the cut. I would have understood if the third spot on the team went to Sharon Lokedi (who was a close third in New York and second in Boston) or Rosemary Wanjiru (2023 Tokyo champ, sixth at Worlds in 2023, second in Toyko in 2024, with fastest Kenyan time this year, 2:16:14). Even selecting Joyciline Jepkosgei, who wasn’t on the short list but ran 2:16:24 for third in London, would have made more sense.

But instead, the third spot went to Brigid Kosgei. Kosgei once held the world record and has an incredible resume. But her results in recent years—a DNF due to injury in London in 2023, fourth in New York behind Obiri and Lokedi last year, a 2:19:15 win in Abu Dhabi in December, and a distant fifth-place finish in London two weeks ago, behind Jepchirchir and Jepkosgei—don’t prove that she’s the third-best Kenyan marathoner right now. Lokedi was selected as the alternate, and she’ll go if anyone pulls out.

Don’t get me wrong, Kosgei is an incredible marathoner, and she could certainly medal in Paris, but she didn’t earn her spot by being better than Lokedi or Wanjiru. But maybe I just didn’t understand the selection criteria. Journalist Michelle Katami tweeted that the team needed to include a Nike athlete. If that is indeed the policy, official or not, that’s ridiculous. Like the U.S., Kenya’s national team is sponsored by Nike, but in the U.S., the way Nike athletes make the team is by being good enough to earn the spot.

Jonathan Gault pointed out in a LetsRun piece that every time Athletics Kenya has made a controversial marathon selection decision, it has benefited a Nike athlete. And any time any country makes a head-scratching choice in selecting a team, it makes me thankful for the U.S.’s Trials system.

Though it can be absolutely brutal, selecting a team through a Trials race rewards those who can perform on a particular day, under pressure. It’s fair because everyone races on the same course in the same conditions, with no rabbits, just as they will do at any championship event. And thrilling, high-stakes races are great for the sport. If a committee had selected this year’s U.S. marathon team, there’s almost no way they would have picked the team we ended up with.

Selection by committee or criteria can also set athletes up to run themselves into the ground, trying to get one more good race in before the deadline. The U.S. tends to use descending order lists to select its World Championships marathoners, but those spots are generally far less coveted.

There are plenty of reasons for Kenya not to have its own marathon Trials—a lack of suitable sea-level venues, no one wants to give up their spring marathon appearance fees or prize money, and trying to offset all of that would be very expensive. There’s been a lot of talk about the future of the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials being up in the air, but Athletics Kenya’s decision drives home the value of having a Trials race.

In response to my tweet about Athletics Kenya’s decision, Katami asked me who I would have selected for that third spot. Honestly, I don’t know. My heart says Lokedi, but that might be because she’s based in the U.S. and I know a lot more about her than I do about Wanjiru. I’m biased. We all are. The most fair way to decide would have been to have them race for the spot, and then honor the results, whether they confirmed our biases or not. Politics and sponsor influence should have no place in selecting teams.

Additional Results

The World Athletics Relays Bahamas 24 took place in Nassau over the weekend. In Saturday’s prelims, the U.S. ran well enough to secure their Olympic spots in the women’s 4x100m and 4x400m relays, as well as the mixed 4x400m. And on Sunday, they raced for prize money and preferential Olympic seeding. The event couldn’t have gone better for the U.S. women. They swept the titles in all three relays. Gabby Thomas impressively ran a leg on both the winning 4x100 and 4x400 relays, with only 20 minutes between the two events. (Results)
Whittni Orton Morgan is just getting back to racing after having surgery in November, and she’s off to a great start. With pacing help from Anna Camp Bennett, Elly Henes, and Courtney Wayment, she won the 5,000m at the Oxy Invitational in 15:06.11. Second place was more than 91 seconds back. Sammy Watson won the 400m in 52.76 and Nikki Hiltz won their heat, from a standing start, in 54.40. Hiltz doubled back with an 800m win (2:00.33), and Camp Bennett took second (2:00.81). Henes won the 1500m (4:12.19) and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won the 100m hurdles (12.71) and the 200m (22.38, +2.9 m/s wind). (Results | 800m video)
In very wet conditions at the Oregon Twilight meet, the Bowerman Track Club’s Kaylee Mitchell won the 1500m in 4:09.45, a four-second PR. Her primary event in college was the steeplechase, but even if she hasn’t focused on the 1500m as much, it’s a nice jump, given the conditions. (Results)
Adams State’s Elena Carey (9:54.44), Ava O’Connor (9:54.66), and Morgan Hykes (10:06.83) swept the top three spots in the steeplechase at the Portland Twilight meet. Combined with teammate Gracie Hyde’s NCAA Division II record of 9:28.17 last month, Adams State now has the four fastest times in DII. Canada’s Gabriela DeBues-Stafford won the 1500m in 4:15.09, one day after running 4:15.26 for fourth at the Oregon Twilight meet. And one week earlier, at the Oregon State High Performance Meet, she ran 4:15.59. She’s nothing if not consistent. (Portland Twilight results)
Kenya’s Sarah Naibei won Spokane’s Lilac Bloomsday 12K in 39:00 (5:14/mile). Makena Morley (fourth, 39:34, 5:19 pace) was the top American, and new pro Aubrey Frentheway took fifth in 39:50 (5:21/mile). (Results)
Stephanie Bruce, who is only seven months postpartum with her third child, won the Pittsburgh Half Marathon in 1:11:12, and she was also the top masters finisher. Molly Bookmyer was second (1:12:17), and Everlyn Kemboi took third (1:12:32). Nell Rojas finished seventh in 1:14:32. Jane Bareikis won the marathon in 2:37:37. (Results)
Amber Zimmerman won Philadelphia’s Broad Street Run 10 miler in 52:52. (Results)
Twenty-three weeks into her pregnancy, Anna Rohrer won the 500 Festival Mini Marathon, a half marathon in Indianapolis, in 1:15:18. For comparison’s sake, she won the race in 1:11:31 last year, a few weeks after running well at the Boston Marathon. (Results | Post-race interview)
One week after winning the Eugene Marathon in 2:40:53, Kate Landau, 47, finished second at the Vancouver Marathon in 2:40:35. Mexico’s Argentina Valdepeñas, 42, won the race in 2:39:38. Runner’s World published a nice article about Landau, marathoning, and aging last week. (Vancouver Marathon results)
In her debut, Katie Spencer won the Lincoln Marathon in 2:42:50. (Results)
Olivia Anger won the Flying Pig Marathon in 2:43:22. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

It was interesting to hear Jenny Simpson reflect on her Boston Marathon experience and her career on I’ll Have Another. I was surprised to hear her say she doesn’t know if she’ll run another marathon. Simpson has done a lot of interviews recently, so I was not expecting to get much new content out of this one, but I was really glad I listened to it.
I enjoyed hearing about all of the planning that went into Emily Durgin’s race at the USATF 10 Mile Championships on Women’s Running Stories. And I don’t know if she has said this elsewhere, but I was interested to hear she’s planning to run the Valencia Marathon on December 1.
I loved hearing from Dawn Ebbetts, who won the 70–74 age group at the Boston Marathon, on Run Farther and Faster. I’m impressed by how much training she can handle, and this one will inspire runners who hope to keep running strong as they age.

Additional Episodes: Kim Conley on Female Athlete Nutrition | Two-time Olympian Vicki Huber Rudawsky on What’s Inside the Box? | Australian middle-distance phenom Claudia Hollingsworth on For the Kudos | Italy’s Sinta Vissa on Citius Mag

I’m expecting a good race at Saturday’s USATF 25K Championships; Betsy Saina is back to defend her title. And I’ll be interested to see if any game changing-performances come out of Sound Running’s Track Fest later that night. Sifan Hassan was just added to the 5,000m field. (Streaming info for the latter here.) The next Diamond League meet will be on Friday in Doha, and the start lists should be posted here before too long.

Thanks to everyone who helps keep Fast Women going via your support on Patreon and Venmo; none of this would be possible without you. I hope you have a great week.

Alison