Shalane Flanagan: The Runners’ Daughter

Be careful to pick your parents well.

Tito Morales

© 2010 42K(+) Press, Inc.

On November 7, 2010, Shalane Flanagan will line up at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in Staten Island for her first attempt at a marathon. The last time a female American distance runner with Flanagan’s credentials made a similar move up in distance was almost exactly nine years ago when Deena (Drossin) Kastor also debuted at the New York City Marathon.

Flanagan, as was Kastor that winter, is a national champion many times over in cross-country, on the track, and on the roads, and she is the American record holder in distances ranging in length from the 3,000 meters to the 10,000 meters. But the 29-year-old Flanagan has one thing on her resume that even the great Kastor didn’t have prior to her first marathon: a bronze medal in international track competition, which she earned in the 10,000 meters at the Beijing Olympic Games.

And unlike Kastor, who was once admittedly leery of ever participating in a 26.2-mile footrace, Flanagan’s move up has never really been in doubt. While, yes, Flanagan admits that the prospect of racing that far is daunting, she takes comfort in the fact that both of her parents have already paved the road for her. In fact, given her lineage, it seems almost to have been predestined that Shalane Flanagan would one day become an elite-level marathoner.

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