Up Dawg 10 miler is ON! Keira is busting it out!!!

Coyote Montane wrote:

In the Citius podcast interview she said she ran 3X a week about 20 miles in those interim years.

I think you misunderstood her training plan. She said she was on 3 day training weeks and then explained that as just trying to get 20 miles in every three days, whether that be 20-0-0, 10-0-10, 7-6-7 or any other combination.

NotPossible wrote:

This is an athlete who, back in 2013, ran 3:49:49 at Missoula Marathon in what was a legitimate effort for her at the time. That was a bad day for her for sure since she'd run 1:08:34 for 10 miles and 1:27:54 for 1/2 in the build up back then, but none of her current performances make any sense in relation to what that 2013 version of D'Amato ran. If an athlete possesses the kind of mind boggling natural ability that her current performances suggest, then she would have been running a lot faster earlier in her post-collegiate, pre-kids career, even if she was only training recreationally. There is something very un-natural about her recent running achievements.

She is also an athlete who ran 6th in the NCAA XC. That is like a 15:45 5k type performance which is orders of magnitude better than the above listed ones. Ryan Hall ran some 26 min 5k on the roads a while back. If he decides to make a come back as a master and runs like a 15:00, Are you going to look at the 26 min 5k and say he was doping or are you going to look at the 13:15 and go the dude was talented.

She was a stud in college, had a foot injury right after, and stopped training . I don't know what her college training was like but if she was doing 50-60mpw, I am not shocked that bumping it up to 100 gave substantial gains. Through in some shoes and we are talking about outlier improvement but not insane.

But as always you can never write off drugs. There have been enough busts among athletes where you go why the heck are they doping that it always has to be a consideration...

Results with splits https://raceday.enmotive.com/#/events/2020-up-dawg-10-miler/results

If this was a guy people would be throwing doubt towards the performance. I don’t see how you can’t be suspicious of a 36 year old mother with a full time job who is now smashing current pros...

I was skeptical of the distance at her 15:08 "5k" race, but this race shows that she is running very fast. Maybe shoes? Well, she's going to be a contender at some distance. Very impressive.

I guess that she’s broke her 8k, 10K and 15K PBs on the way to her 10 mile performance. Good for her. Good for her...

Old Man Runner wrote:

While I do love this message board and the anonymity of it and being able to post under unregistered usernames (which I do sometimes, as well), I do have to say that those people responding that she is doping with unregistered usernames is kind of ridiculous. I mean, at least "man up" and say it with your registered username.

I asked the question under my registered name (well, one of them anyways) because I felt the question needs to be talked about and addressed....simply because of the age factor and the "time away from the sport" and all of a sudden putting up these really fast times and all that....

I know, right??!!! Can’t believe all these people posting with anonymous unregistered names instead of being real men and posting with their anonymous registered names!!

Is FastTuohy Katelyn Tuohy? No?

It's legit until proven otherwise - period! What an accomplishment.

She was coached by LRC favorite Matt Centrowitz in college and is now coached by another LRC favorite Scott Raczko (she's also represented by Ray Flynn I believe).

Ya'll be acting like she's being coached by Salazar or Jama Aden. Give me a break.

Not sure why you'd be skeptical. She time trialed a 15:04 on the track in June. Video of that entire time trail is widely available.

zxczxcv wrote:

I was skeptical of the distance at her 15:08 "5k" race, but this race shows that she is running very fast. Maybe shoes? Well, she's going to be a contender at some distance. Very impressive.

I don't get the name. What's Up Dawg?

Deal with it, Keira is the real deal! No attitude, no altitude, just hard work. She called it, and destroyed the American Record. Check out her many podcasts. When she wins Survivor remember updawg called it first.

I also think that it needs to be considered that very few women make it to the top echelon in sport at an older age like this *because* of the timing of child-bearing years. Think of all the women who bow out in the 25-30 age bracket because its time for many to think about children and career. Women on average have 10-12% of their eggs left by age 30. If you hit 25 and you're still not making US teams, you probably consider moving on a bit more quickly than a male who performs similarly might. Not to mention if you haven't chosen a career path that actually makes real money, you better get to work because most female career paths earn a bit less than males would and you're starting in a deficit (for admittedly more complex reasons than just "sexism" but not a relevant part of the discussion here).

So we likely have the problem of a very small sample size of women that have attempted to resurrect a running career post-babies, which is why this feels like such an outlier, with no other precedent to compare to. I don't know if professional women at the top who had babies and came back are a fair comparison either. Of course you will see little to no gains in those cases because they were already maxing out in training and competition and typically time having children slightly post career-peak.

Keira was a 3x All-American at AU in cross country and once in outdoor track. Has anyone been paying attention to the level of elevation of track times for top collegiate women in the last 10-15 years? I ran collegiately 2004-2009 and I'm pretty sure 16:28 qualified for the indoor 5k my final year. That was the 67th best time last indoor season. People are flying all over the country to run on oversized or banked tracks, or over to super fast time trials on the West Coast to post some incredible times. Thats just not something most teams did (or could afford to do) early 2000s when Keira was in college. She was probably posting her best 5k at 10 pm at the Penn Relays on distance night when the 10 spectators still there are freezing in the stands. So I wouldn't rush so quickly to write her off as some nobody in college. A quick google search also reveals she was a 3.8 GPA in Mathematics (and maybe Computer Science?) so she was likely working pretty hard at multiple things and not coming anywhere near max potential in college. Maybe she would have been running these types of times (or faster) a few years out of school if she had been a part of something like the Bowerman Babes back then, but it didn't even exist yet. I'm guessing there were very few training opportunities for non-NCAA champions in 2006. So most people in her situation back then would have tried to stick around their college coach, supplement with a part time job, and like her, end up bagging it after getting injured. That said, I think Centrowitz's training was always very conservative from what I remember others saying so now with a healthy, strong body and all her ducks in a row mentally, physically, etc, it seems possible to me. For these and other reasons, I'm actually buying these performances.

I don't know Keira personally, I'm just a fan of the sport and LetsRun and busy these days chasing around a 1 year old with another on the way so its kind of fun to live vicariously through her when all I can muster is a 20-30 minute run with the jogging stroller at 9 minute pace.

Check out the urban dictionary or The Office.

Old Man Runner wrote:

Maybe she is the outlier. I have no idea. I can't think of any other times in running where a 36 year old takes basically 7 years off in her prime ages (25 to 32) and then sets an all ages distance record.

She was a pretty damn good runner in college.

Carlos Lopes comes to mind. Olympic medal in '76, injured, does not have some great years, returns in '83 with the (then)second fastest 10,00 ever, Oly Marathon gold and two more World XC championships.

On the other hand, is D'amato suspicious? Yes. Team Raven winning the 2000 Oly trials perhaps? Jenny Spangler winning the '96 trials?

Awesome run. What shoes did she wear?

A couple other women who come to mind who are not as fast but definitely run pro times, and made massive improvements in their late ‘30s and ‘40s post kids are Roberta Groner and Sinead Diver

Both of those women have full time jobs too. Sinead Diver is 43 and running world class times that are faster than many full time pros.