Kate Landau of Tacoma, Washington, broke the tape at the Eugene Marathon on April 28 with a chip time of 2:40:52. She was more than 3 and a half minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
CA Notice at Collection 6:08 pace for the marathon. Her time gave her an age-graded Published: Apr 30, 2024 5:05 PM EDT.
Yes, she’s among the fastest people in the world in her age group. But she’s slowing from her best times, which she set in her early 40s. As all runners eventually have to do, she’s coming to terms with aging.
Landau’s marathon PR is 2:31:56 from the 2019 Boston Marathon, Other Hearst Subscriptions 2020 Nutrition - Weight Loss in Atlanta, Landau was 14th, on a hilly course, in 2:34:07.
But then injuries set in—she struggled for two years with Q&A with Actor Jeremy Renner and what she assumes was a sacral stress fracture. (Landau didn’t bother with imaging; she just knew she was in pain.) She didn’t resume racing until September 2022.
The marathon in Eugene was the first time in years that she felt she raced to her potential. Her training showed she was capable of about 2:40. And that’s what she did. But it’s still well off her best times.
“I have certain people who are like, ‘You’ll get back there!’” Landau said. “And I’m like, ‘No, I’m not going to.’ I can tell in my body that something has changed. Whatever it is, it used to be really easy to run under 6-minute pace and it’s not anymore.”
Landau disputes the characterization of herself as an outlier. “I think someone who’s an outlier might be like Dot McMahan or Roberta Groner, who are still running super fast,” she said. (Groner ran a 1:11 half marathon at age 45.) “I’m running 10 minutes slower than I did. There’s definitely a shift, and it’s hard mentally to accept that. I think the transition from feeling like you still can run for PRs to not being able to run for PRs is hard.”
Setting new goals helps her accepting her changing abilities. She likes to win smaller marathons or at least take home a little prize money—she won $1,000 in Eugene. As she was coming back from injury, she took pleasure in seeing incremental improvement in her splits during workouts, even if the bar has been set lower than it was.
Landau’s journey through the sport has always been unusual. She was a top high school and college runner, but she struggled for decades with an eating disorder and injuries until she sought comprehensive treatment in 2011. She gave birth to her daughter, Grace, in 2012.
In the years since having Grace, Landau did some of her best running. She made her marathon debut in 2015, and she won a series of local races and smaller marathons. She did most of her training in the early mornings, before going to work as a physician assistant.
She is currently a PA at a practice doing vascular surgery. She works four 10-hour shifts per week, and saves her hard long run or her nuptial hard workout of the week for her days off.
In recent years, although her mileage is about 90 per week, she no longer doubles, instead taking her dogs for walks in the afternoon. Her easy run pace has slowed from about 6:45 to 7:15 per mile. And she has become more disciplined about strength training, doing a 30- to 45-minute routine twice a week, at most. “I try to keep it simple, because I don’t enjoy it too much,” she said.
One way that Landau is an outlier is her ability to recover quickly. She’ll be running the Vancouver Marathon in Canada on May 5, hoping to pick up a little prize money to fund her shoes and travel.
Her advice for runners in their late 40s and 50s?
“I think just being able to set new goals and be okay with the aging process,” she said. “You might not be the same place you were, but you can still enjoy it.”
Year-Old Runs a 17-Second 100 Meters 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!
