Former Irish marathon champion Christine Kennedy from Corofin, Co Galway, a long time resident of Los Gatos, California has been named 2011 Masters Athlete of the Year by USA Track and Field’s Masters Committee.
Kennedy will receive her award on Saturday next, December 3 at the Jesse Owens Awards and Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in St Louis, Missouri.
In 2011, Kennedy, aged 56, won both the over 55 5,000m and marathon at the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships in Sacramento, USA. She had run the 5000m as a warm-up for the marathon and won it in 19 mins 36.56 secs. In the marathon, nine days later, her time of 3:00:48 was good enough to see her finish third overall as well as first in her age-group. Kennedy also won American Masters 5km, 10km and 15 km titles.
Her best run of the year had come at the Boston Marathon last April when she finished in 2:56:17 – almost 12 minutes ahead of the next woman in her age-group. It was her third age group win in Boston and her fastest time – in 2009, she finished in 2:56.32 and in 2010, came home in 2:57.17 – a time that would have given her fourth place in the M55 class!
Inspired by watching Emily Dowling, then a mother of two like herself, win the 1981 Dublin Marathon, Kennedy told her husband and family that she planned not to complete the marathon but also to win it some day. They thought she was joking.
“I was so hurt that I decided to start training. It took me five years to win the Dublin Marathon and I haven’t looked back since,” Kennedy said.
Although Kennedy won the National Cross-Country title in 1989, she has always been a marathon runner. Less than three years after she started training, she broke 3 hours for the first time when she won the Galway Marathon in 2:56.19.
In 1984, she won her first Irish Marathon title with a time of 2:49.46 in Clonmel – it was only the fourth time women had been allowed to run the race. Two years later, in 1986, Kennedy finished second in Dublin with a time of 2:49.34. A year later, she finished 24th in the marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Rome, clocking 2:45.47.
Kennedy’s breakthrough year came in 1990, when she at last won Dublin in 2:41.27. ” The first time I won it I was hero in my village of Corofin. They had bonfires blazing and it was just a spectacular surprise when I got back home.”
A year later, she repeated that win in Dublin this time in 2 hrs 35 mins 56 secs, also taking the Irish title. Her time was all the more remarkable because only a month earlier, she had run 2:35.05 at Berlin. That time was just five seconds off the qualification mark for the Barcelona Olympics and is still the seventh fastest time by an Irish woman.
After stretches in France and England, Kennedy and her family moved to California in the mid-1990s. She finished second in the 1993 Big Sur Marathon in 2:46.30 and later was to win age -group titles in the race in 2005 and 2006. That came after a long break from the sport between 2000 and 2005 because of a herniated disc in her low back. She returned to racing with a 3:06.35 effort in the 2005 Big Sur Marathon.
In 2009, for the 30th anniversary Dublin Marathon, Kennedy ran the race with her 30-year old daughter and sisters Phyllis Browne and Mary Doyle. Running in the colours of Galway City Harriers, the three sisters won the over 50 team award, although Christine, battling a recurring back injury, struggled to finish in 3:20.21.
Since then, she hasn’t looked back.
“I know so many runners who live in the past and don’t make adjustments physically or mentally for their age. They end up injured and not racing. I try to dwell in the present and recognize the limitations placed on me by age.
“Just because a person is 55 doesn’t mean she can’t get out on the track and do some speed work. I love the feel of doing speed work. Running has made me who I am and I don’t want to lose that, and I hope I can inspire some women to keep running as they get older.”
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