Fiona O’Keeffe explains her Olympic DNF: “The deadline had passed and it would have been too late to sub in an alternate at that stage and ..I didn’t want to have that regret of not having tried and not having given myself a chance.”

In recent days, there has been a lot of discussion about US Olympic marathon runner Fiona O’Keeffe’s decision to try to run the Olympic marathon while injured and her subsequent DNF. O’Keeffe was shown hobbling well behind the field less than 20-seconds into the race and only made it a mile. Kimbia Athletics – her agency headed by Tom Ratfcliffe “felt it was important to address speculation surrounding Fiona O’Keeffe’s participation in the Olympic marathon last Sunday” so they conducted a quick Q&A with her this morning, which is pasted in full below.

How did the lead-in to Paris go for you?

The last five weeks or so leading into it, we got in a really solid training block up at Mammoth Lakes. I was logging good marathon mileage, getting in good long runs, getting ready for the hills. I was feeling good about the training and where I was at. Things weren’t perfect, but they never are and it was a good body of work that I was happy with.

O’Keefe’s distress was visible to those paying close attention to the start of the Olympic broadcast

When did the issue arise?

I did my last real track workout on Friday (August 2) and that was a good workout. I felt strong, no issues, and then on Saturday on my run I started having a little bit of tightness in the left hip. I didn’t think too much of it, but then the next day, Sunday, it was worse during the run. I was supposed to run 90 minutes, I ended up running 80, but I thought: OK, we’re just being smart. But then walking around the rest of the day didn’t feel very good so that’s when it started. We decided to come back to Paris. We were up in Strasbourg. We came back to see the doctors and physio and try to get ready for the race.

What did they tell you?

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That’s the thing that’s a little confusing. It feels like nobody’s been able to pinpoint it so far. I’ve seen several different people and the Physios seem to mainly think it was an issue of how my hips were aligned and I had an ongoing tight calf so it was possibly compensation because it was on the opposite side. That’s the best explanation I’ve been able to get. Later in the week, I did end up seeing the USATF doctor and getting an MRI done and their read on the MRI was it was clear there was no evidence of muscular damage or anything in the bone. So going off that information, it was like: OK, based on the information we have, there’s not going to be further damage from running on it so we may as well try and see what’s possible.

On those final days, were you able to run?

Yeah, I was able to run some. It was definitely not pain-free, but I got a couple more treatments. The last one was Friday morning and I felt quite a bit better walking out of that office so we were thinking: OK, we’ll take the rest of Friday off, see how that treatment settles, hopefully it sets in overnight. Then the next day we’ll run and hopefully we’re good to go. So I did run Saturday morning, just a couple of miles and it wasn’t very good, honestly. But the deadline to declare or not for the race was Friday evening. The deadline had passed and it would have been too late to sub in an alternate at that stage and I was like: OK, if this is a nerve or something, maybe it’ll respond and I’ll wake up on race morning and it’ll settle down a little way into the race or maybe I’ll wake up and it’ll feel different. I didn’t want to have that regret of not having tried and not having given myself a chance.

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The morning of the race and in the race itself, what were you feeling?

It was really painful. It felt like my body wouldn’t let me run the way I needed to from the get-go. I did a short warm-up and I didn’t feel like there was much point in continuing on if I wasn’t able to compete effectively. I think I made it about a mile into the race and we knew it was definitely possible I would drop out, I thought I’d do it a little later on if so, but it was trying to make a smart call for the day and for the upcoming months.

What’s your next step from here?

I need to figure out what exactly is going on with my body because I feel like I don’t have the answers. I need to know what the best treatment approach is. I was going to take time off now anyway with it being after a marathon, so it’s a good time to reset and start assessing how I can train better in the future so I can get to the start line fully healthy and ready to go.

Talk about O’Keeffe’s difficult Olympics on the world-famous letsrun messageboard: No O’Keeffe in marathon?