After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 1996, Deena Drossin grappled with a career decision: Open a bakery or pursue professional running? The chocolate-raspberry scones, she figured, could wait.
She knew that the world's top distance runners trained at altitude and on teams, so she reached out to the legendary coach of an all-male postcollegiate group in the high desert plains of Alamosa, Colorado. Joe Vigil didn't agree to take on the 23-year-old but said she could visit and they could talk. So Drossin loaded up her Jeep and set her sights on Alamosa, with no intention of ever looking back.
It's a move some might describe as gutsy, even foolhardy. But that determination, nerve, and how-far-can-I-go? drive would propel her to the top of American distance running. Over the course of her ensuing career, Deena Drossin (now Kastor) set American records in the 5-K, 8-K, 12-K, 15-K, 10-mile, 20-K, half-marathon, 30-K, and marathon. She dazzled the world with a stunning come-from-behind performance in the 2004 Athens Olympic Marathon. The bronze medal she snagged there, along with a silver won by her Mammoth Track Club teammate Meb Keflezighi, showed that the Americans could run with the best in the world. Kastor proved it again two years later by winning the London Marathon in 2:19:36, a time that broke her own American record in the distance. By year's end, she was ranked the number one marathoner in the world, a distinction that's been held by only one other U.S. female runner, the pioneering Joan Benoit Samuelson.
"There was a time when just making it to the Olympics was seen as this big goal, and it is," says Kara Goucher, 36, who competed in the 2012 Olympic Marathon. "But Deena was the first person in a long time who was like, No, let's win stuff, let's bring home hardware. Olympic Marathon Trials
Kastor is once again carving her own path. At an age when many elite athletes retire--Kastor turned 41 in February--she is still competing and smashing records. Earlier this year, Kastor set three new masters records in the 10-mile, 20-K, and half-marathon. On September 21, she hopes to claim the world masters record in the half-marathon at the Philadelphia Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon. (The record of 1:09:56 was set by Russia's Irina Permitina in 2008.)
Kastor, though, isn't racing just for masters titles. With her fastest days behind her and the new demands of work and family in front of her, chasing a record is simply a way to keep pulling the best out of herself. Because, as Kastor has learned, age doesn't dampen one's competitive spirit--or love for the sport.
Kastor sits at her dining room table in Mammoth Lakes, California, laptop open. It's early afternoon and her 3-year-old daughter is sleeping. Or supposed to be sleeping. The bedroom door opens and Piper pops out, singing, "Shake your booty." She demonstrates, then slams the door. Kastor suppresses a laugh. "I have no idea where she learned that."
The day has been a typical one: Run 10 miles, pick up Piper from preschool, do crafts with daughter, work. There was no massage or ice bath after the run. There will be no strength-training session or second run later today--those are disciplines and luxuries of another time. During her peak years, Kastor famously took one- to two-hour naps. Today, naps are just as critical, not for Kastor but for Piper, because when daughter sleeps, mom can work. On the agenda today is writing the newsletter for the Mammoth Track Club, for which she is president, and coordinating appearances with longtime sponsor Asics. Other days, she may be sitting in on calls with USATF (she's a board member) and fulfilling various requests (she recently wrote a three-part series for wives of military personnel on how to start running).
After winning bronze at the 2004 Olympic Games, she wrote on a drugstore receipt: "My greatest wish besides inspiring a child to dream loftily in sport is to help in the appreciation of the journey; to instill in many the desire for fitness and health because of the vitality it brings." (She scrawled a sandwich recipe on the other side, a habit of the runner who loves food as much as fitness: "open face ciabatta, r. beet, caram. onions, roasted r. peppers, cheese melted, w/potato fritter & zucchini.")
These days, Kastor runs about half what she used to. On paper, she is scheduled to run seven days a week. Travel, a sick child, and other commitments often reduce it to five days. On a good week, she logs 85 miles, down from a career high of 140.
"I've really loved the freedom I've had," Kastor says. She has gone hiking, run wilderness trails (previously avoided, lest she fall), and raced on a whim. Her husband, Andrew, who coaches her as well as the rest of the Mammoth Track Club, says that after a workout, his wife sometimes comes home and asks, "Should I have coffee or champagne?"
It's easy to assume that the transition to a second--slower--phase of one's career would be difficult. But Kastor has embraced it. "Forty is that stage in aging that's celebrated by people I've known, so to me, I wanted to celebrate my 40s by doing what I love, being with friends, running, and eating," she says. Toward that end, she and Andrew dubbed the year she turned 40 (2013) as The Year of Saying Why Not. Race cross-country? Why not? Run the World Cross-Country Championships just seven days after the L.A. Marathon? Sure, why not?
"Competing at the highest level is a tough life, and a lot of athletes are deliriously happy when they can take their career in a new direction and embrace other roles," says Jim Afremow, Ph.D., a sports psychologist who works with elite competitors and Olympians. Multiple factors influence an athlete's transition to midlife, including the success of her career and whether or not she has something else to channel her energy into, he says. Kastor has had both. But equally as important, says Afremow, her setbacks have provided crucial mental preparation. Six years ago, Kastor was forced to drop out of the 2008 Olympic Marathon when a bone in her foot shattered. She thought the injury might end her career. It didn't, but one morning she sat sipping coffee wondering why she was not struggling more with the enforced layoff. "I realized then that I am not just passionate about running, I am a passionate person," Kastor says. "It was a relief to understand I could love a life filled with cooking, baking, reading, and writing."
She returned to competition, but the scare prompted Kastor, then 35, to join USATF's board, a step toward envisioning her postcompetitive life. "I wouldn't have been willing to make the time even a few years earlier," she says. "But it felt right to start contributing in this way."
A few years later, motherhood became another turning point. Kastor made a hard charge to regain her competitive fitness after Piper was born in 2011. She toed the line at the 2012 come up. There has to be balance. So many athletes struggle because sport is all they have.", Kale Sweet Potato Salad. Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Davila (now Linden), and Kara Goucher earned the Olympic bibs instead. (Kastor finished in sixth place.) "I was disappointed I didn't fulfill my running goal and also felt I wasn't being a great mom because I was selfishly pursuing that, so I felt like I fell short on both sides," Kastor says. "I really had thought running and motherhood would work itself out, but I realized I needed to set priorities. After that, I put health and family first, running and business second. It really helps shape decisions."
Such a value shift is common at midlife, says Yolanda Bruce Brooks, Psy.D., a clinical/sports psychologist who specializes in life-stage transitions. "We are multidimensional people," she says. "Spouse, professional, parent. If you live in one space, athlete or not, and enter midlife, questions like Guide to Mental Health? Races & Places
It worked in Kastor's favor that motherhood and midlife coincided. It felt natural, she says, for her training to be less of a priority. She cut back her mileage and made commitments to the Mammoth Track Club and Asics, believing she would soon be ready to step away from competition entirely.
But that moment hasn't arrived. "Forty rolled around and I'm like, I'm going to be doing this the rest of my life!" Kastor says, laughing. She thrives on training and racing. The stage--Olympic or otherwise--no longer mattered. Nailing a repeat in practice or claiming a masters title has its own satisfaction. It's the pursuit of a goal that feeds her. "It's really been since turning 40 that I have truly seen the value in running, racing, and pushing my own limits," she says. "It's been healthy, physically and mentally."
To keep it that way, she's setting goals to match her current time demands. Kastor is unsure if she'll run a competitive marathon again and is focused instead on the more manageable shorter distances. "I still feel at 41 I can get into good marathon shape, but it would take pushing other obligations aside," she says. "So I'm in a place now where I have to weigh what's important to me. Would racing another marathon be greater than my value of giving back in other ways? I don't know right now."
If Kastor isn't sure exactly where her path will take her, it might be because there aren't a lot of role models out in front. Many elites step away from the sport in their 40s. Pete Magill, 53, coach, age-group record holder, and Running Times columnist, says that while elites like Bill Rodgers, Joan Benoit Samuelson, and Colleen De Reuck have gone on to successful masters careers, the list of top runners who have made the transition is short, particularly for women. "Men have a longer history in the sport," he says. "Women are still catching up." The majority of competitors who reign in the masters division, he says, were previously talented but under-the-radar runners who never made it to the big time. The rigors of training and racing is one reason many world-class runners may choose retirement over masters. "Sustaining that elite lifestyle is difficult, particularly when there's little financial reward," Magill says.
Injury history also plays a role. The runners who continue racing competitively are often the ones with the thinnest orthopedic files. "If you tear the meniscus in your knee, it can leave your cartilage messed up," says Vonda Wright, M.D., orthopedic surgeon and director of the Performance and Research Initiative for Masters Athletes at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Later in life, the joint is achy because of it, and you're more susceptible to future injury." In other words, it's not so much the miles on the legs that matter, it's the injuries you've accumulated. Kastor has suffered Achilles issues and a foot break, but much of her career has been remarkably injury-free.
And while Kastor's fastest race times may be behind her, research shows that rapid decline is not inevitable. Muscles deteriorate with age and aerobic capacity falls off at midlife--if you're sedentary. "The bulk of studies on aging look at the average population," says Wright. "When we study aging athletes, the outcomes are vastly different."
Wright and colleagues biopsied the quadriceps muscle of 40 runners, swimmers, and cyclists ages 40 to 81 who exercised four to five days a week. They found that exercise prevented the loss of muscle strength and lean muscle mass across all age groups, concluding that the decline of muscle mass in older populations is likely the result of disuse, not age.
Similarly, Wright attributes significant drops in aerobic capacity in older populations to inactivity. She examined the performance declines of runners participating in events from 100 meters to 10,000 meters at the National Senior Olympic Games. The study, along with others, shows little to no decline up to age 50, less than two percent from age 50 to 70, and a steeper decline of eight percent after age 75. Maximum heart rate does slow and there are other factors, but "the drastic drop we expect does not have to happen," says Dr. Wright, adding that you must remain active for your entire lifetime.
Experts say aging athletes need to train smarter to excel. Kastor, remember, cut her peak mileage nearly in half. "Deena's legs are fresh, and she's got that springiness because she's not weighed down by mileage," says husband and coach, Andrew.
The lower volume combined with consistent-quality work--Kastor's current speedwork is the same distance and intensity as in her peak years--has kept her remarkably fit. Twice in the last month, Kastor went under three minutes for 1-K repeats, a time Andrew estimates she hasn't run in five years. "I am way more surprised with her performances over the last 18 months than when she was training full-time," Andrew says. "We really didn't think Deena would be this fast at 40."
"She's still elite," says Goucher. "We're all still scared of her."
Kastor would delight in hearing that. At the starting line of races, just before the gun, she likes to stride out, then walk calmly back, game face on. It's her opportunity, she says, to show competitors how fit she is and that they don't stand a chance.
If easygoing Kastor's intensity surprises you, it shouldn't. As Afremow points out, "Competitive athletes must be 'psychotically' optimistic. It's the mark of a champion." And it doesn't just disappear in your 40s.
At a mile repeat session at a park in Mammoth, Andrew sends the women on the team off first. Kastor is in front within five steps. Her body is fluid, powerful, but not at ease. Her narrow face carries the maturity of age, but her body remains distance-runner lean, though less chiseled now that she's skipping the weight-room routine. A minute and 20 seconds later, the men take off. The runners descend through the towering pines, pass a playground, then loop back, charging uphill toward the stop sign. Kastor hits the first repeat in 5:02. She tosses her gloves, walks, then jogs, seeming unable to stop moving. Kastor hardly looks the elder.
"Aim for 5:10, 5:15," Andrew says.
Kastor replaces her bottle and looks up. "I'll do 5:05."
Short pause.
"I'm asking for 5:10 to 5:15," Andrew says.
Kastor cuts the three-minute rest to 2:30. She doesn't want the men, who are throwing down 4:40 miles and who also happen to be in their 20s, to pass her.
Before the third repeat commences, she says to the men, "Catch me if you can." Not exactly playfully.
Kastor isn't one to dwell. She looks at what's next, not what might have been. So she insists she has no nostalgia for faster times. "I'm not comparing myself to the runner from 2006 [when she set her half and marathon PRs]," she says. "I'm comparing myself to last week or maybe two weeks ago--What Is a Reverse Taper."
Still, Kastor can have her moments. She can still get teary discussing having won bronze, not gold, in Athens. "I was the fittest girl on the course that day," she says. She's also irritated at herself for not trying to match Paula Radcliffe's surge at the end of the 2002 World Cross-Country Championships. She admits to having been intimidated by Britain's star runner. She did, however, return to worlds the following year and gave it her all against Ethiopia's Werknesh Kidane. She took silver again, but feels a difference in the two losses.
There is also the reality of her records falling. In March, Flanagan claimed the 15-K title. It hurt. "It was one of my most impressive records," Kastor says. "The marathon record is important to me because the distance is iconic, but by no means do I feel the race was perfect. But the 15-K, I was flawless that day." Kastor says new records are good for the sport, but she jokes that she hopes she's dead when her marathon and half-marathon records fall.
She may not get her wish. Flanagan has said she's aiming to go under 2:20 at the Berlin Marathon on September 28. And Goucher says her pie-in-the-sky goal is 2:18. And those new masters marks? "Honestly, Deena's new records kinda get my competitive juices flowing," says Goucher.
Of course, Kastor knows the loss of a record doesn't erase the fact that in that moment in history, she did what no other American woman had done before. She knows that what she gained from those years is far greater than a number, and that pursing sport is really chasing life. "A goal is just an awesome way to force growth on yourself," she says.
Afremow says that for athletes to keep competing, there must be a single ingredient: passion. "Michael Jordan had such a love of the game, he had a clause in his contract that he could play pickup games," he says. Kastor, he posits, is running's Jordan. "She loves running, training, and competing. Her motivation is intrinsic."
Andrew puts it this way: "Deena has nothing to prove anymore," he says. "What she is doing now is pure passion for the sport."
Kastor had her splits written on her arm when she ran her 2:19 marathon. She's debating whether or not to wear her watch for her September half-marathon record attempt, as she tries to break 1:09:56. "Looking at your wrist all the time isn't fun," she says. She's also thinking about running the New York City Marathon in November. Or maybe the Paris Marathon next spring. "If I stay healthy and enjoy training and racing next year, it may set me up to participate in the 2016 come up. There has to be balance. So many athletes struggle because sport is all they have."," she says. Or maybe she'll be a commentator for the L.A. Marathon instead that day.
There is, at least, one certainty: "I may not be traveling the world and competing," Kastor says, "but I'll still be running repeats when I'm 60."
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Deena Kastor is just as passionate about food as she is about running. She has shared some of her favorite receipes with us, including quot;Im asking for 5:10 to 5:15," Andrew says, Beach Nuts, Kastor Oil, and even a Health - Injuries.
