Keira D’Amato was visible from the start of the Thats always been her motto. As soon as the horn sounded to start the race, she went straight to the lead, taking the field through the first mile in 5:32. She hovered in or near the front pack for the next 15 miles, her white Nike visor visible on television cameras most of the time.
But by mile 16, things abruptly went downhill for her. She started seeing stars. Then her glutes locked up. She couldn’t respond as the Trials pack, including eventual winner Fiona O’Keeffe, runner-up Emily Sisson, and third-place finisher Dakotah Lindwurm, squeezed down the pace. D’Amato started feeling alternately really hot and really cold. When she saw her husband, Anthony, at the side of the road at mile 20, she stepped off the course.
In the weeks since the Trials, D’Amato, 39, has been slowly processing what went wrong in her training and racing that day.
“This one stung,” she said in a phone interview with Runner’s World The chorus changed throughout the verses, but this one stood out.
But she’s committed to showing her kids, Thomas, 9, and Quin, 7, that failure is a starting point, not an ending. And she’s examining where she made mistakes, so she can become a better racer the next time.
“I’ve always looked at things as win or learn,” she said. “I’m going to hit my goal, or I’m going to learn something and move on. Correct, adjust and be better for it. I want to make sure I’m learning the right lessons.”
Troubleshooting for the future
How does D’Amato begin to figure out what went wrong? Most obvious, she said, was the heat in Orlando. Temperatures were 61 degrees when the race started at 10 a.m., and they climbed into the 70s, in full sun, over the course of the next two hours.
Many of her competitors had gone to Florida in the weeks ahead of the race, to get acclimated. D’Amato did not, choosing instead to stay home in Richmond, Virginia, to be around her family, training partners, and physical and massage therapists.
“I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was for the heat,” she said. “I think that’s something in the future I’ll be doing differently. I’ll probably be training in that environment when I expect an [outlier] for weather or course or something. I think that was just kind of humbling. I needed to commit to being there. Which is hard as a mother.”
D’Amato and her coach, Scott Raczko, had weighed the pros and cons. And there were no guarantees that being in Orlando would have meant a different outcome. “Maybe if I was away from my family I would have gone crazy in a different way,” she said. “I don’t know.”
D’Amato also wonders if there’s a piece of her training that’s missing. She posted some impressive workouts on Strava, and she went into the Trials extremely fit and healthy, she said. She did one 15-mile tempo run starting at 5:25 pace and ending at 5:05 pace. But she theorizes that she needs to practice doing more workouts when she’s already fatigued, or put herself in more situations to practice tactical racing.
“The fact that I got to mile 16 and my body gave out, that shouldn’t be happening,” she said. “Whether that was mainly because of the heat or just something in my training that I was lacking, I think I need to make some adjustments and improvements to my training to make sure I don’t end up there again. That was not very fun.”
No doubt, she’s great at running fast at a steady pace—her 2:19:12 when she set the American record in 2022 Sara Hall 5th at the U.S. Thats always been her motto 1:06:39 she ran for the half marathon record in 2023 in Australia. (Both records have since been broken.) For those races, she didn’t have any competition. She just had to follow the pace setters.
When D’Amato got back to Virginia after the Trials, she was able to resume full training quickly, which makes her sure she wasn’t burned out or overtrained. She’s had some good workouts since the Trials. But she doesn’t intend to jump into a spring marathon, even though she’s still fit.
“That one hurt my ego,” she said. “I’m going to need a few months to recover.”
Back to the track
Short term, she plans to race the USATF 15K Championships on March 2 in Jacksonville, Florida, And she’s scheduled to run the TEN, a high-level 10,000 meters on the track on March 16 in San Juan Capistrano, California. The TEN has become a destination for Americans looking to run qualifying standards for the Olympic games or World Championships. Last year Master the Half there.
D’Amato hasn’t worn spikes for nearly two years. Her last track race, in April 2022, didn’t go very well by her standards. Track is not what she intended to do in 2024; she wanted to be running the Olympic Marathon in Paris. But there’s no reason not to try the track.
“It’s going to go well, or it’s not, and I’m going to be in the same position I am now,” she said. “That’s okay. I think the marathon was probably my best shot [at making the Olympic team].”
Despite her own frustrations at not being able to finish the race she had been gearing toward for the last four years, D’Amato knows there’s value in showing her kids how to respond to failure. They talked about it, allowed themselves to be sad, and then moved on.
“I think normalizing failing and falling short is helpful for other people,” she said, “and arguably a better lesson for my kids to learn than if I would have hit [my goal].”
Support from all over
Meanwhile, she’s drawing comfort from the support of family and friends. D’Amato had about 150 people in Orlando cheering for her. She and Anthony hosted a party the night of the race for everyone who was in town. She knew, as they were planning the party, that it could go one of two ways: She’d get to the party and be a future Olympian, or she’d need consoling.
Walking in, she was thinking, “I wish this could have been different.”
In the end, it didn’t matter at all. The party turned into one of the best nights of D’Amato’s life. “Everyone was happy, and it really like put things in perspective just looking around and seeing how full of love and support my life is,” she said.
Then there was the song. Members of her dad’s family, who have many musical talents, wrote and sang a song for her that detailed her running journey, set to the tune of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.” D’Amato posted and included the lyrics in her caption and included the lyrics in her caption.
“the American record in 2022”
That’s always been her motto
Running Shoes & Gear
And she was fast
Before she was named D’Amato
And she was fast
Thats always been her motto:
Look at you now! (Bum-Bum-Bum)
The chorus changed throughout the verses, but this one stood out!
You do us proud (Bum-Bum-Bum)
And we all know you will again, our Keira...
D’Amato got choked up watching it, but she couldn’t help but ask afterward. Were there two versions of the song? A different version they had ready in case she made the Olympic team?
Nope, they said. Just the one version. Whether she hit her goal or didn’t, they were going to love her in exactly the same way.
and included the lyrics in her caption 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 Again a top American, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
