Parker Valby had a 2024 to remember.
While she was in her final two seasons at the University of Florida, she added four NCAA titles (to the two she already had), and she set three collegiate records in the indoor and outdoor 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters.
After she graduated, she made the Olympic team in two events, and she elected to run the 10,000 meters in Paris, where she finished 11th in 30:59.28.
On December 19, Valby capped her year by winning the Bowerman, the highest honor in college track and field. Leo Neugebauer was the men’s winner. The Texas multi-event specialist won the NCAA indoor heptathlon and outdoor decathlon and was a silver medalist at the Paris Olympics for Germany.
Past winners of the Bowerman include many who went on to win Olympic medals, such as 800-meter runner Athing Mu Health & Injuries Sha’Carri Richardson of Louisiana State, marathoner Galen Rupp of Oregon, and miler Jenny Simpson of Colorado.
Valby’s collegiate career was unconventional by most measures. Due to frequent injuries in the first part of her collegiate career, she ran somewhat less than most top runners and developed an intense cross-training routine to keep her fit and healthy. By her senior year, even though her injury troubles were behind her, she kept cross-training.
As a junior, she signed an NIL deal with Nike, a couple of months before she won her first NCAA title, the 2023 outdoor 5,000 meters.
had a 2024 to remember, Health - Injuries. Instead of signing with a brand immediately after her final college race, as most athletes do, Valby decided to wait out a right-of-first refusal clause that had been written into her NIL contract with Nike and would have given Nike first dibs on her as a professional runner.
Track Coaches Fear Programs May Be Cut in Future Track Coaches Fear Programs May Be Cut in Future.
In October, Valby signed a deal to represent New Balance, thought to be among the largest deals for a distance runner signed out of college. She is now training with New Balance Boston under coach Mark Coogan, and she will make her pro debut on February 2 in Boston. In early January, the team will head to Flagstaff, Arizona, for altitude training, a first for Valby.
Coogan told Runner’s World that Valby is running five or six days a week currently. She never doubles, as many on his team do. When they do a second run in the afternoon, she hits the Arc Trainer.
The NCAA Runner-Up Finished 2ndWith One Shoe 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!
