Today we’d like to introduce you to Caitlin Keller
Hi Caitlin, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started running when I was in 5th grade. My mom had me join the after-school running club and it just kind of stuck. I didn’t fully enjoy running until High School. It was more of a tolerance for me until that time. I kept doing it though because I was good at it. So, I ran Cross Country and Track yearly throughout junior high and high school and ran for one year at Southern Utah University on a scholarship. I lost my love of running in that year at college. I just wasn’t enjoying it as much and I kept getting injured. The one good thing that came out of that year at college was that I was able to meet my husband! After that year at college, I took a little bit of time off and would only run occasionally. I signed up for races here and there but didn’t really train or prepare for them. Finally, in 2019 a good friend of mine and I started running together again. We built a good base after running almost every morning together and started signing up for races. Her husband began coaching and started creating workouts for us and then it just built up from there. Since starting back up in 2020, I’ve completed 2 marathons, 5 half marathons, and countless 5k races. I’ve qualified for Boston and reached times I never thought possible at the half marathon distance. I’ve also had the blessing of becoming a mom to a wonderful little boy amidst all of that. Running is something very dear to me and I love being able to share it with others!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t know if anything is ever a smooth road. There’s always going to be setbacks, especially when trying to achieve a goal. When I first got back into running in 2019, I didn’t really have goals in mind, but as I continued running, my coach started to put the idea in my head of qualifying for Boston. At first, I didn’t think much of it. But then after a really stellar half marathon race in April 2022, it really started to hit me that I could Qualify for the Boston Marathon. My first attempt was the St. George Marathon in October 2022. I had a less-than-ideal buildup because I was originally planning on just doing the half marathon, before switching to the full. When the race day came, I really didn’t know what I was doing because I’d never ran a full marathon before, and I was all alone. The first 19 miles were good. Then after that things really started to fall apart. My legs were so heavy and tired and running felt so hard. I ended up finishing that marathon at a 3:33 time, which was just 3mins over the qualifying mark. So I was really disappointed. Proud, because I finished a marathon, but disappointed because I’d just missed it. This led me to sign up for the Utah Valley Marathon for June 2023 to have another go at getting a BQ. I started training for it, but then I ended up with some plantar fasciitis problems that kept me from running for 3 weeks right in the middle of my marathon build. It was such a hard time mentally because I knew I was missing out on key training workouts and losing fitness and it was really difficult. I finally got it under control and started running again about a month before my Marathon. Going into the race, I was super nervous because I didn’t have an ideal training build, but my coach was still confident that I could do it, so I believed him and started out on pace for the marathon. It ended up being a really great race. Lots of difficult moments throughout, as well as several moments of wanting to give up, but I stuck to it and ended up with a time of 3:29.36. Which put me under the qualifying mark by about 24 seconds. I knew that even though I qualified, there was still a really good chance that I wouldn’t be able to run at Boston because of the cutoffs they have to make for the amount of entries they received. I applied to run at Boston, but unfortunately didn’t make the cutoff. So even though I qualified to run at Boston, I wasn’t able to. This was really hard at the time because I had worked so hard to make it. It’s daunting to think about training for another marathon to try to qualify once again. I know that I’ll probably give it another shot someday to qualify, but right now is not that time. They’ve also just moved the qualifying marks down. So for each age group it’s faster by 5mins. So now I’ll have to run a 3:25 marathon if I want to make it.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a Junior High English Teacher! This is my 7th year of teaching. I only teach part-time right now. I was full-time, but after having my son, I switched to part-time so that I could have more time with him, while also still working. I currently teach 7th, 8th, and 9th grade English (one class of each). I have a lot of fun and I really love my job. The best part is definitely the students. They say/do the funniest things sometimes and I really love to watch the lightbulb moments that they have. I didn’t always want to be a teacher, I had originally planned on becoming a Radiologist, but in my first year of college, I took a Biology class and failed it, miserably. So I switched gears. In the back of my mind, I always kind of knew I wanted to be a teacher. My mom is an Elementary school teacher and I always loved watching how much she changed the lives of her students, it was amazing to grow up looking up to someone who could do that. So I decided that I wanted to do that at the Secondary Level.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
I think the biggest thing is to trust the process. Running can be so difficult, so just start where you’re at. Whether that be 1 mile a day, or a combination of walk/run, or just 10mins out there. Just be proud of where you’re starting and trust that if you stick to it, it will get easier! Progress with running often takes a long time, but continue to set goals and chip away at them one step at a time. My other piece of advice is to make friends with people in the running community. Talk to people at races, go to run clubs, interact with running influencers in your area. Have a community to chase goals with and help support goes a long way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://msha.ke/redheaded.runner
- Instagram: @redheaded.runner
