Merrilee Blackham, of Ogden, runs at Antelope Island State Park on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020. Blackham qualified for the U.S. Olympic Team Marathon Trials, which takes place in Atlanta, on Saturday, Feb. 29. | Brian Nicholson, for the Deseret News
Utah has nearly 20 runners competing in Saturday’s Olympic Trials in Atlanta, Georgia
OGDEN — Somewhere between the late-night feedings and school holiday programs, Merrilee Blackham wondered what might have been.
It wasn’t regret she felt when she thought of the college scholarship she’d given up for marriage and motherhood. It was more curiosity, and it danced around the edges of her life most often when she revisited the sport she’d loved since she was a little girl, jogging a few miles on a treadmill, behind a baby stroller or impressing friends at a community 5K.
But for the most part, she’d resigned herself to a different life. One full of toddler tantrums, bedtime stories and unexpected but urgent hugs.
“I kind of felt, at that point in my life,” the 42-year-old mother of four said of the decade after she gave up a college scholarship to marry and have a family, “like that time in my life had passed. I didn’t ever expect to get back into competitive running. I really didn’t see myself ever getting back to competing at the level I am now.”
Where she is now is on the eve of competing at a level she dreamed about when she was a little girl. On Saturday, the Ogden woman will line up with about 500 of the country’s best distance runners in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Utah will be well represented with more than 20 runners, including 2016 Olympic marathoner Jared Ward, competing.
“I certainly feel more confident,” Ward said of the difference between this weekend’s trials in Atlanta and those in 2016 when he surprised many with his third-place finish. “But (I feel) the same excitement. It’s something special to be a part of an Olympic year. I certainly think my chances of making the team are better this time.”
But he said he’s also just trying to enjoy the experience of running with some of the country’s best runners. He will also be competing with eight BYU graduates, several of whom he trained with in Provo.
“I’m really just excited about having another opportunity to participate in the trials,” he said. “It’s a mini-domestic Olympics. It’s cool for everybody there.”
Blackham agrees.
Unlike Ward, she doesn’t have any illusions about whether she might make the 2020 Olympic Team. But she does know the unique energy that accompanies this race because she qualified for it in 2016 after many years of finding her way back to racing.
Blackham fell in love with running before she was old enough to compete.
“I’ve always run,” she said. “I ran track and cross country in junior high and high school. In elementary, they’d send us out to run the mile, and that was my favorite day.”
The Centerville native didn’t want to give up racing when she graduated, so she decided to walk on at Southern Utah University her freshman year.
“I did well, and quickly earned a scholarship,” she said. “But then I got married, and my husband was going to medical school. ... I gave up running while he pursued (a medical career), so I didn’t do a lot of running in my 20s. I was really busy taking care of a young family.”
She ran to stay fit. She ran for a few minutes alone with her own thoughts. She almost never ran to see how fast she could go.
“I had my first baby, and I ran two marathons,” she said. “I really didn’t know what I was doing, but I ran a 3:11. ... When my husband was in his residency, I ran two or three miles, just for fitness, and it was my only out. My husband worked long hours, and we lived far away from family.”
In 2009, they moved back to Utah, and her husband established a practice in Ogden.
“I found a lot more time for myself, and I started running more,” she said.
She ran marathons, even qualifying for the Boston Marathon. But at 32, she didn’t have any idea how much more competitive she could be until she met the right runners.
“I met some other runners who were actually older than me,” Blackham said. “They were in their early 40s and they were beating me. I started thinking, I wonder if I started doing what they were doing, if I could be as fast as them. I was inspired by some of these runners who were older than me.”
So she hired a coach — Paul Pilkington — one of the state’s most successful and well-known distance running coaches. He’s in his 12th season at Weber State, with 10 years leading both men’s and women’s cross country teams. In July 2017, he was named the head coach for Weber’s women’s track and field and cross country programs.
“He started throwing me back into workouts I hadn’t done since I was in college,” she said. “I immediately saw success. It was fun for me.”
Blackham started to run even faster than she had as a collegiate athlete, and that only fueled her desire to push herself to new heights. One day she noticed she was only a few minutes off the Olympic Trials time requirement, which at the time was 2 hours and 43 minutes.
“I remember dreaming about qualifying for nationals,” she said. “I felt like I was capable, but I had kind of let those dreams die. ... As I was having success, I ran a 2:46 in St. George. I was only three minutes off, but for the Olympic Trials, you have qualify on a completely flat course.”
She mentioned the idea of trying to qualify for Olympic Trials to her husband.
“He kind of laughed, and said, ‘You’re not going to do that on a flat course. You’re fast, but I don’t think you can do that on a flat course’,” she said, noting St. George’s Marathon has a lot of downhill miles. “I approached my coach, and he didn’t say what he thought. He just said, ‘If you’re going to do it, this is what you’re going to have to do.’ As soon as I felt like he had confidence in me, I kind of let all my doubts go and went after the goal.”
Her goal quickly became the family goal.
“It kind of became a whole family effort,” she said. “My husband and my kids, we all sacrificed a lot to make my goals happen. ... I tried not to let it interfere with their lives, but they’ve all been supportive. It’s a bit of a juggling act.”
Blackham ran in the 2016 trials, which were in Los Angeles in unseasonably warm conditions.
“I went into that race in the best shape of my life, and I felt like I was going to run a PR,” she said of hoping for a personal record. “I ran what I felt was a very sub-par race. I loved the experience of being part of the trials. But I left feeling very disappointed that I wasn’t able to perform the race that I had trained to run because of the heat.”
She was 38 at the time, and once again, she thought a door had closed.
“I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Blackham said. “I was pretty disappointed that it turned out the way it did.”
Then officials changed the qualifying standard to 2 hours and 45 minutes. That gave her all the encouragement she needed. She qualified in Chicago, and will now head to Atlanta with her family to “have the race I hoped to have four years ago.”
“It’s a hilly course,” she said. “It’s going to be challenging. But I’m hoping to break 2:45. I’m hoping for that PR.”
She said the number of runners has more than doubled (from 200 to 500), but she’s just happy to be part of the field.
“I feel like a lot of the excitement comes from the hundreds of runners who don’t make the Olympic team,” she said. “For a lot of us, the trials are our Olympic Games. Just to be included in it, just trying to show you belong in that high-quality race. It’s incredible to rub shoulders with the top athletes in the world, and know you’re a part of that.”
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2PyOHj4
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