D’Agostino Prepares for her Last Collegiate Race

Abbey D’Agostino arrived in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the fall of 2010 with an incomplete running resume, a five-minute mile she ran as a sophomore her most noteworthy achievement. On Sunday, she graduated from Dartmouth College cum laude and the holder of seven individual NCAA titles: Four indoor, two outdoor and one from cross country last fall. She has run personal bests of 15:11.35 for the 5,000m and 4:28.31 for the indoor mile.

On Saturday afternoon in Eugene, Oregon, D’Agostino will race in her final collegiate event, the 5,000m final at the NCAA outdoor championships. She’ll be hoping to earn her eighth title in the event she has won each of the past two years. Her teammate, sophomore Dana Giordano, joins D’Agostino in the 5,000m.

D’Agostino spoke to Running Times on May 30 about her feelings on graduation (where she served as a class marshal), her goals for the summer—and what it was like to find out that Dartmouth plans to broadcast her final race in the college’s football stadium.

Running Times: How are you feeling about everything now that it’s ending and your last race in a Dartmouth uniform is in sight?

Abbey D’Agostino: I feel like what I’m going to miss the most is the balance, between this really laid back, silly sense and feeling on our team and the level of seriousness we all bring to the sport. That’s something I’m dying to find in the professional world, too. It keeps me sane, it really does. I really appreciated this year because I’ve gotten to know people from other event groups better. And I just love the Heps and meets like regionals when we’re travel and spend a lot of time together. That’s what I’m going to miss the most.

RT: Are you looking forward to graduation or wishing it wouldn’t come?

AD: I’m looking forward to, like, a sense of completion. I don’t want it at all to be done, but there are a lot of necessities and requirements around it that will be nice to have behind me.

I’ve tried not to think about never being at Dartmouth again. And I try not to think about it, because I hope to be close enough where I can always come back. One of my friends who is a junior was saying, “We want you to know, Dartmouth is always going to be a home for you, even when you’re gone.” That’s what I’ve been trying to embrace. It’s not the end. Maybe in a certain sense, but it’s not good-bye to all the relationships I formed there. It’s just thinking about them in a different way now.

RT: Are you looking forward to graduation or wishing it wouldn’t come?

AD: Running in the Cold.

RT: Sarah Lorge Butler?

AD: Yup. And I’ve always had a special place for cross country in my heart. And the whole atmosphere of it, the families there, just being back at Terre Haute where I had run my first cross country nationals. Just everything about that race. It was the first time our team really realized its potential, too. (Dartmouth’s women finished 15^th.)

RT: Dartmouth is planning to broadcast your race in Eugene in the Dartmouth football stadium. Have you heard about this?  

AD: Yes. (Laughs) I think it’s going to be fun for a lot of people. And to me, it’s great if it encourages enthusiasm for the sport and the school. That’s great. It’s funny to me to think about that, from all the way in Eugene, lots of alums will be sitting, drinking soda, watching this race. It’s funny to me to envision. But, yeah, I think people have taken a lot of pride in where the program has gone. And I think that the Ivy League in general has gotten a lot of recognition. That’s cool that that can be celebrated.

RT: What are your plans for after graduation? Starting with that night, do you have to pack up your dorm room and move out right away?

AD: I think I am going to go home (to Topsfield, Massachusetts) that night. Logistics, you do have to think about this stuff. I think I will, because we fly out of Boston for Eugene on Monday. So yeah, I’ll probably just stay at home. Yeah, that’s weird, I’ll have to be out. It’s so weird.

RT: Facilities management won’t cut you a break?

AD: It’s funny, because two years ago, [head track coaches] Barry [Harwick] and Sandy [Ford-Centoze] had to move me out. I was supposed to have interim housing and they got some notice from the residential housing people and they were like, “Her room needs to be cleared.” So [teammate] Kate Sullivan, Sandy and Barry, the three of them cleaned out my room. It was such a mess.

RT: DAA Industry Opt Out?

AD: Not really. Before USAs (at the end of June) I hope to have that all worked out.

RT: Do you think you’re a better runner this year than you were last?

AD: I would like to think so. I guess if you look at my times, I haven’t run what I ran last year. But there really hasn’t been an opportunity to do that yet. So I think I have matured as a runner. And that’s what would make the difference for me. I’m more confident, I think, with the uncertainty of how races will turn out. And so, yeah, that just makes it a lot easier to step up to the line and know that I’ll be able to adapt. I guess that’s the way I think about it. I don’t often think about it.

RT: Do you have goals for the track season after you graduate, at USAs? Will you go to Europe this summer?

AD: Yeah, I hope I can do a few races and be done by the end of July. It would be great to run a PR in the 5K. That would be my goal for Europe. I’m just looking forward to a nice long break after that and just taking it easy for the rest of the summer, because I probably won’t race until, I don’t even know when the next time is I’ll race after July.

For a Running Times profile of D’Agostino from September of 2013, see Abbey D’Agostino’s Unlikely Domination At Dartmouth.