What a difference a year makes.
We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back Health & Injuries, she’s been thinking back to where she was last October. She had just started running again, after a six-month layoff to recover from an injury that could have been career-ending. Her earliest workouts: 1 minute of running, followed by 9 minutes of walking, three times.
since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books.
She was being very careful as she recovered from osteitis pubis (OP), a chronic inflammation of the pubic symphysis, the joint between the two pubic bones, and the surrounding tissues. The painful condition is commonly seen in soccer players and in mothers returning to exercise after pregnancy. In distance runners, it occurs less often.
Thweatt, now 29, had done the London Marathon in April 2017, where she ran a PR of 2:25:38, a time that currently places CA Notice at Collection. She managed to train through OP, but after the race, she took a long time off to fully recover. She points out that she had the support of her sponsor, Saucony, to do so, even though she gave up her chance to represent the U.S. at the 2017 world championships.
For the first month after London, she did no activity at all. Walking, driving, sitting, sleeping—everything caused pain.
In the second month, she started back to cross-training in the pools around her home in Boulder, Colorado. She describes herself as the “world’s worst swimmer,” so she would do 50 to 60 minutes Races - Places, during which time, she made friends with the senior citizens who worked out there, too.
“People don’t know what to make of aqua jogging,” she said. “You’re sharing a lap lane with swimmers. People kind of get to know you. You do what you can to take your mind off the situation and stay as positive as you can.”
Occasionally she recruited friends to come keep her company. Mostly, she gritted her teeth and fought through every boring minute. “It’s pretty tedious stuff,” she said. “It definitely makes you hungry and keeps you motivated to get back.”
As her symptoms diminished, she added in stationary biking. And all along she was working in the gym to build up the muscles in her hips, glutes, and lower abdominals, to take the pressure off the trouble areas. Thweatt also addressed a significant leg-length discrepancy. She had been able to work around it when training for shorter distances, but marathon training U.S. Women Marathoners Having a Breakout Moment.
When she finally got back to running in October, her buildup was minute by minute for the first few weeks. Only in January did she get back to her first short workouts. “I’ve never taken that much time off from running, so the first few weeks back you’re feeling pretty funky,” she said. “Will I ever get back to where I was? You don’t know.”
But her racing went well in her return. Thweatt won the Chicago Shamrock Shuffle 8K in March, her first in 11 months. She set consecutive PRs for the road 10K at races in New York in April and Ottawa in May. And she ran a half marathon PR—1:10:17—on July 1 in Australia, even though she had been up all night with food poisoning the night before the race.
[her sixth all time among U.S. women 360-Core Workouts You Can Do at Home.]
After, she settled back in Boulder for a summer of marathon training, targeting Chicago with hopes of racing against Jordan Hasay and Amy Cragg, the fastest American women at the distance recently. Both announced in the past two weeks that injuries are keeping them from the race.
“I’m disappointed,” she said of the news. “A big deciding factor for my coach and I to do Chicago was the fact that I was going to get to race Amy and Jordan. They’re two of the best in the country, even the world. I wanted to see how I stacked up against them.”
That said, Thweatt knows she’ll have her hands full with American Gwen Jorgensen, the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in triathlon who has set her sights on making the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon now. And five international athletes in the Chicago field have personal bests faster than 2:21. It doesn’t faze her. “There’s an epidemic of self-belief going through the American women distance runners from all events, from track to the roads to the marathon,” she said. “You’re seeing it across the board.”
She thinks her training indicates a PR may be possible in Chicago, and recent workouts have given her confidence. An 18-mile progression run she did a few weeks back gave her confidence, and her coach, Lee Troop, mentioned that one, too.
“She hit it out of the ballpark,” he said. “She was really smooth.” He also said she had her fastest-ever time over a four-mile hill climb they do in Boulder.
Thweatt is just thankful to be back, given where she was a year ago. She’s happy to be part of the dozens of American women making strong showings.
And most of all, she’s glad to be running on solid ground.
That said, Thweatt knows shell have her hands full with is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
