Carrie welcomes Allie Kieffer back to the show! They talk about her previous year of training and racing, her pacing duties for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and they talk about the downs (and ups) of injuries and keeping contracts.
Recorded October 1, 2019
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Allie Kieffer
Allie Kieffer finished in an unexpected fifth place in the women’s open division and as the second American woman behind Shalane Flanagan at the 2017 TCS New York City Marathon, lowering her personal best by more than 15 minutes to clock a 2:29:39. She then returned to the TCS New York City Marathon in 2018 to better her personal best, clocking in at 2:28:12 to take seventh place. In the lead-up to the 2018 race, she hosted a training group via Facebook, raising funds for NYRR’s Run for the Future program. Run for the Future is a program that empowers young women entering their senior year of high school to learn about running while building self-esteem and confidence, developing leadership skills, and training for their first 5K—the Percy Sutton Harlem 5K—at the end of August. Participants who complete the program receive at $2,000 scholarship.
Earlier in 2018, Kieffer recorded a three-minute personal best to win the Doha Half Marathon in 1:10:40, finished fourth at the USATF 10K Championships in Atlanta, and was the top American finisher at the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, NY.
Kieffer participated in her first New York Road Runners event, the four-mile Japan Run in May 2014. She won the race by nearly a minute and a half. Her next race with NYRR would come that November where, having become a member of the New York Athletic Club, she won the Race to Deliver 4M, finishing just ahead of her NYAC teammates and training partners.
Kieffer ran her first marathon in 2016, winning the Miami Marathon despite not preparing specifically for the race. Three months later, she broke the world record for the indoor marathon with a 2:44:44 at the Armory Indoor Marathon in New York.
Kieffer grew up in West Islip, NY, and she is a positive body image activist who made national headlines in SELF Magazine for an article she penned about body image and running, claiming her weight has nothing to do with her achievements as a runner. In the winter of 2018, she lived and trained in Kenya alongside Olympian Betsy Saina, whom she met and became friends with at the 2017 TCS New York City Marathon. She now resides in Austin, TX.
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