All roads lead to Orlando, and Fiona O’Keeffe is ready for the challenge that the Olympic Marathon Trials will bring after a season of lessons, growth and improvement.
The talented distance runner has found her groove on the track, as well as on the road scene. She ran new personal best times in the indoor 5000m this past season (15:01.34) as well as in the 10,000m (30:52.77). O’Keeffe is taking what she learned and the progression that she made on the track and on the roads into the Olympic Marathon Trials.
“I feel like my track season overall, I feel like I made some good progress,” she said. “I didn’t get to show up at USA’s how I wanted to because I was dealing with a foot infection that turned into a little surgery situation. So that was not ideal. But yeah, happy with some of the steps that I made there. And then over the summer, I was kind of trying to get my way back into things with the road. So I feel like I was able to get some good momentum there, but not really necessarily put up any results that I was super stoked about. But I feel like after taking a reset in October, I’m in a good place now to really be moving forwards and going into this year. So excited about where things are now.”
While O’Keeffe’s injury kept her from accomplishing the things that she hoped to accomplish on the track, it gave her a unique perspective, which led to a greater appreciation of the sport that she loves.
“It was tough. The timing was just pretty bad because it happened right at the end of May, and USA’s was at the beginning of July,” she said. “So my motivation I guess for getting through it was trying to come back in time for USA’s, and we did everything we could. But at a certain point it was like okay, I have to listen to my body – it’s not coming around quite as fast as I would like. So that was frustrating but also definitely not being able to compete at USA’s did give me a lot of motivation to keep training and racing and just getting back to it. Anytime that I’m not able to race, it reminds me how much I love that part of the sport.“
One of the lessons that O’Keeffe said that she learned was that there are some things that are out of your control, especially when it comes to running. While things might not have gone the way she had wanted them to go, she has no regrets about the process in how she and her team handled the adversity that she faced.
“I feel like it was a good lesson in learning that there are certain things that are out of your control,” she said. “Because it’s easy as runners – we like to do everything we can, and it can become easy to get attached to that specific outcome. And I didn’t quite get the outcome that I wanted out of it. But at the same time, I don’t regret the way that we handled it.”
Having a great support system is important to O’Keeffe, especially when it comes to her teammates that she trains with day in and day out: the Puma Elite Running Team, led by former elite pro distance runners Alistair and Amy Cragg. She trains with some of the best runners in the world, including Natosha Rogers and Taylor Werner. The team environment helps O’Keeffe reach her full potential in and out of running.
“It’s definitely huge,” she said. “My college team at Stanford was a great community to be a part of. We spent all of our time together, in and out of practice, and that really helped me improve as an athlete and a person. So now having a strong team here, and even the running community as a whole is definitely big for me.”
The Olympic Marathon Trials are set to take place in less than two months in Orlando on February 3. This will be O’Keeffe’s first crack at the full marathon distance, and after watching the event as a fan over the years, she’s elated to being among the competitive field.
“What excites me is that there’s a lot of unknown going into it, and I’m trying to view that as a positive thing because I’m really excited about experiencing the distance,” she said. “I’ve experienced that level of competition before, but never in that Trials setting. So I’m really excited to just be a part of that event. I’ve followed the last few editions of the Trials and kind of been on the outside more as a fan. I’m so excited to be a part of it.”
