Unheralded mother of two and realtor, Keira D’Amato , runs 15:04 5K time trial and she's coached by Alan Webb's HS coach!!

Nobody who knows the real Centro Sr claimed that.

YMMV wrote:

Funny it was reported on a jamin thread that he ran the same session and has run under 14:50. And she runs far higher mileage.

She really looks like a 14:4x contender to my eye, making her one of the most extraordinary running comeback stories of all-time. I wonder how Centrowitz feels about not being able to get her under 16, and yet now 15 years later she runs this with a job and a kid!

I can't believe people on LRC are this ignorant.

You think Centro should apologize for taking a 4:55 girl who never ever made HS nationals to 6th in the country in college in xc? She was a mult-time All-American and twice top 20 at NCAA xc?

You do realize she smashed both Molly Huddle and Amy Cragg in that race?

6 Keira Carlstrom, Sr 19:58.1 American

13 11 Amy Hastings, Sr 20:09.0 Arizona State

15 12 Molly Huddle, Sr 20:13.0 Notre Dame

So she didn't run a great 5k on the track, big deal. It's not like Ameircan has the budget to fly to Stanford. Plus the way I see it is she came down about a minute in the 5000 in 4 years under Centro (her 10:30 3200 HS pb is equivalent to about 17 flat) and another minunute in the 15 years since.

Don't get me wrong, it's an AMZINGLY COOL story as she was gone for so long but in general I'm not shocked when someone who was 6th at NCAA xc runs the Olympic standard in the 5000. But let's don't use this as an excuse to bash Centro.

Here's a cool feature on her from last April.

https://www.runwashington.com/2019/04/30/tf-keira/

rojo wrote:

I can't believe people on LRC are this ignorant.

?

Ventolin once suggested that Powell sprinted fast in Rieti because the abundance of trees increased the amount of oxygen on the track.

Just wow... wrote:

Here's a thread I started last year having noticed the meteoric resurrection of this talented athlete taking flight. Keira has blown my mind, and who knows what's to come!!!

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9594338

Genuine props to you!

She's basically Jack Nicklaus at the '86 Masters. Impressive!

Was she a math/stats major at American U? Someone upthread mentioned the AU connection.

No, he was the best ever. It would be like a 50 year old golfer that you had never heard of winning a PGA event.

I had a strong 6-mile run today but feel humbled after reading this--I need to train harder and better. This is inspiring and humbling at the same time.

Must.

Get.

Faster.

Maybe a better comparison was Rocco in the '08 Masters (or was it the PGA?) against Tiger.

https://www.runwashington.com/2019/04/30/tf-keira/

THIS is inspiring. I guess people are motivated by the strangest things. Even root beer floats.

A few career changes and life changes later, it wasn’t a hunger for competition that brought her back to running, it was a hunger for dessert.

Living in Midlothian, Va. after having her second kid, D’Amato was looking to lose some weight.

“I decided I was going to run three whole…minutes,” she said.

She made it about a minute and a half, cried and walked home. It was a short walk.

The next day she tried again, and made it a little farther.

She made it up to seven miles then posed a challenge to herself. If she ran 10 miles, she could have a root beer float.

“I started running 10 miles every day because I wanted a root beer float every night,” she said. “It turns out that if you do that, you get pretty fast.”

She left a stable career in IT as a PM/Developer making $$$ to be a real estate agent? And she could afford to buy a house young? Most Millennials are trying to get by.

That's a big leap of faith.

D’Amato leaned on her computer science and mathematics degree and got a job as a developer and project manager for Freddie Mac. She bought a house. She grew up.

“That was a really rough time for me because my identify and everything I associated my life with, everything I had worked towards, was gone,” she said.

She became “Keira the runner” who doesn’t run. She did project management. That said, she loved putting on normal clothes, being an adult. And her improved health insurance covered the surgery to fix her foot.

Then Potomac River Running came calling in 2011, pitching her on the job of directing the stores’ marketing.

“I didn’t know how to do that, I was a developer,” she said. “It was kind of a risk, coming from a stable field like information technology.”

Well, if you are looking for ignorant, your cherry-picking of my post from two days ago when her 6th place in XC wasn't revealed until a day later is a pretty good example. I was posting based on the facts of her track career. I don't have time to chase down every performance of a relatively little-known athlete across disciplines.

I'm sure Centro Sr can handle a little internet criticism. Clearly something didn't go well for her after her XC season.

In defense of Centro, American University had a lot of success when he was there. It went to crap under the new coach Sean Graham.

The women just placed 9th out of 10 at their conference championships. The 7th place team put their entire top 5 in front of AU's number 1. Then 29th out of 31 at the Mid Atlantic Regional.

The men just placed 8th out of 10 as one of the only teams with scholarships. 21st out of 25 at the Mid Atlantic Regional.

Sad times.

jecht wrote:

Was she a math/stats major at American U? Someone upthread mentioned the AU connection.

yes. not sure where i first saw that, but a couple years ago after she crushed it at richmond marathon [I was monitoring her progress from about 40 mins. back] I was bragging about her to various colleagues, and the then-Math chair sed Keira had been his advisee in their department.

Don't want to pretend to know Keira well -- i met her a couple times at road races when she lived around DC, and got the impression [consistent with what others have sed on this thread] that she's gracious, personable, friendly.

--Dave Haaga [prof of psychology, AU]

Look for Keira to take on Molly Seidel and others over 12.5 laps at the Music City Distance Carnival in Nashville August 15th

rojo wrote:

I can't believe people on LRC are this ignorant.

That's rich coming from the individual who exhibits 3rd grade grammar skills, and isn't smart enough to hide his racism on his own website.

Who exactly is the ignoramus????

So 23 year-old KoKo has a 5000m PR of 14:26 (I believe), and this 35 year-old just ran a 15:04?

I'm either flabbergasted, or very, very impressed...…………

Whaaaatttttt? wrote:

So 23 year-old KoKo has a 5000m PR of 14:26 (I believe), and this 35 year-old just ran a 15:04?

I'm either flabbergasted, or very, very impressed...…………

Does this mean we can expect about a 13:26 from a 35 year-old KoKo? =)

[3.1]Miles Davis wrote:

People actually use Next% on a track?

About half of the NCAA does, and a lot of pros use them on the track for workouts.