Catherine Ndereba to return to Boston Marathon

  Boston 2005-Photo courtesy BAA

Catherine Ndereba will once again return to Boston to run the Boston Marathon on April 19, 2010. According to the John Hancock press release this morning “”Catherine the Great” needs no reintroduction to Boston as she has written the history books here as the only woman to ever win four times.”

2000 Photo courtesy BAA

It has been 5 years since her fourth title in Boston and I asked her if she is looking forward to running there again. She said it is a very tough course but she enjoys running there. She hopes it won’t be too cold! (In my opinion, she seems to do quite well regardless of how hot or cold it is! Her world record was set in Chicago when the starting temperature at race time was less than 40 degrees and her win in Osaka it was over 90 degrees!)

I’m exited that she’ll be running Boston because I went to Boston U and have only been back once since then so it will be nice to visit with friends while following Catherine. :)

The additional elite women’s field that was announced this morning includes last year’s winner Salina Kosgei (KEN), 2008 winner Dire Tune (ETH) and former winner Lidiya Grigoryeva (RUS). On the men’s side, Deriba Merga (ETH) and Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot will both be back. Merga stopped Cheruiyot’s three-in-a-row streak when he won last year. 

2001 Photo courtesy BAA

Catherine still hasn't decided which warm up half marathon she will run so I also don't know yet when she will return to her training home away from home in Norristown, PA. Right now, she is better off in the warm climate of Kenya during their summer than she would be here outside Philadelphia where we are experiencing the second snowstorm in a week to produce over 20" of snow! Stay warm, Catherine! 

2004 Photo courtesy BAA

Photo courtesy BAA

Catherine Ndereba Chief Guest at Awards Gala

Yet another example of Catherine's appeal to the youth; she was the Chief Guest at The Annual Sports and Clubs Awards at Strathmore University in Nairobi last Friday more...
Lucky students!  Also great for Catherine because she thrives on encouraging students of all ages; if she weren't a professional athlete she would have been a teacher and I'm sure as great a teacher as she is a runner!

The REAL Story on Catherine Ndereba's 2012 Olympic Ambitions

I've been reading a lot of blog posts and online articles about Catherine's 2012 Olympic ambitions. Many of the comments just did not sound like anything Catherine would actually say: "Ndereba vows to be the oldest Olympic medalist at 40" or "Ndereba covets Gold....". These just aren't the type of statements that I could ever picture coming from Catherine so I set out to find the REAL answer. 

It may not make for such exciting headlines as some of the others but it goes like this: Someone asked if Catherine planned on retiring soon. Her reply was that she plans on running through the next Olympics if her body stays healthy.

Now that sounds more like the Catherine I've gotten to know over the past fourteen years. I was surprised to see the word "covet" in relation to her; the only time I would ever expect to see that word in the same sentence as Catherine would be if it were in citing a bible passage. It's interesting how things get twisted around for the sake of good headlines. Fortunately, I don't claim to be a "writer" and mostly consider my writings here as thinking out loud. 

(And for the record, when Catherine does run at the Olympics in 2012, she'll be 41!)