Yoder Begley's long road to Beijing

Training with Salazar helped Indiana native overcome injuries and make U.S. Olympic track team

By Amanda Miles

The Portland Tribune, Aug 15, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Amy Yoder Begley competes in the women's 10,000-meter final during the Olympic Trials in Eugene.

ANDY LYONS / GETTY IMAGES

While the 21,000 people at Hayward Field stared at the scoreboard, Amy Yoder Begley lay flat on her back, gazing up into the Eugene night sky.

She had just finished the women’s 10,000 meters, the first final of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials. She had to meet two criteria in this race to qualify for the Olympic Games: she had to place in the top three, and she had to run under the Olympic “A” qualifying standard of 31 minutes, 45 seconds.

She fought all the way to the end to garner a third-place finish. However, as she crossed the line, she thought she heard the announcer say that she had missed the standard. She collapsed to the track, physically and emotionally spent.

“All that was going through my head was, ‘How did I not run a sub-70?’” Yoder Begley, 30, said of the time she needed on her last lap to meet the standard. “How did that not happen?”

----------------

Yoder Begley’s journey to the finish line on the warm, muggy night of June 27 was much longer than 10,000 meters and far more arduous. For many years, she had been a promising talent but perhaps failed to reach her potential.

She won three state track titles in the 3,200 meters and one in cross country for East Noble High School in Kendallville, Ind. She shined on the national stage as well, garnering three prep All-American certifications in the Footlocker cross country national championships. As a senior, only prep legend Kim Mortensen beat her there.

Yoder Begley continued on that upward trajectory while at the University of Arkansas. She earned 15 All-American mentions in cross country, indoor track and outdoor track, and won 16 Southeastern Conference titles. She won the NCAA indoor 5,000 meters in 2000 on her home track in Fayetteville and the 10,000 meters outdoors in 2001 at Hayward Field.

Yoder Begley showed her tenacity in winning that 10K crown. She had torn her Achilles tendon over the winter. She got out of a boot 10 weeks before the NCAA meet and managed to qualify. Late in the race, she made a move and seized the lead, but she struggled on her last lap in the warm weather.

“I could feel it coming with about 400 meters to go, the dehydration setting in,” she says. “I lost my hearing, and then my vision started tunneling. I didn’t see the finish line; I just kind of hoped that I finished.”

Not only did Yoder Begley finish, she held on for the win. She needed two IVs after the race.

Yoder Begley signed a contract with Asics after graduating and embarked on a professional career. Her husband, Andrew Begley, a former Arkansas All-American, continued to coach her, as he had done since the end of her junior year (his senior year) of high school.

As a professional, Yoder Begley’s running career got much rockier. In 2002 and 2003, she suffered two stress fractures and a torn oblique muscle. Yoder Begley also learned she was osteopenic (low bone density) in her spine.

Despite not being able to train much until March 2004 due to her second stress fracture, Yoder Begley recorded ninth-place finishes in both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the Olympic Trials (she was 17th in the 5K in 2000). She won the U.S. road 10K championship that fall when she took third place behind two foreign athletes in the Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women. In 2005, running for Adidas, she recorded her best finish at nationals, taking seventh in the 5K.

Physical issues still lingered. Yoder Begley suffered from stomach and dehydration problems, was frequently anemic and her bone density worsened.

“We just couldn’t really figure out what was going on,” she says.

Finally, Yoder Begley was diagnosed with Celiac Disease, a wheat and gluten allergy. She got on a gluten-free diet, which allowed her body to start absorbing the nutrients she provided it.

Yet her troubles weren’t over. In May 2006, Yoder Begley fell in the middle of the night in the bathroom after a race. The fall led to bursitis, an inflammation of the bursa sac, in her right hip. she hobbled through nationals and started rehabilitation. In November, she was finally cleared to run again. On her first day back, she went running in the woods and broke her left ankle.

Yoder Begley had reached a crossroads.

“At that point, I’d taken off almost the entire year with bursitis and then a broken ankle, and I told Andrew that something had to change because I couldn’t keep going like this,” she says. “I decided to make a huge change.”

She contacted Frank Gagliano, coach at the Oregon Track Club. He told her that he wasn’t taking on any female 5K runners at that point, but he suggested calling Alberto Salazar, coach of the Nike Oregon Project. One of the athletes Salazar coached was Kara Goucher, who was seeing her own resurgence under his tutelage and would win the bronze medal in the 10K at the world championships that summer.

Salazar decided to take on Yoder Begley. She signed with Nike and moved to Beaverton on Jan. 1, 2007. The transition was difficult. For the first time, Yoder Begley didn’t have to balance a part-time job, but her workout load increased. She even skipped nationals that summer because her training was going so poorly.

“She took a step backward,” Andrew says.

Yoder Begley was doing “all of these new things that we had never done, at least at that level,” he says of Salazar’s rigorous program of running workouts, weight training, plyometrics and dynamic flexibility exercises.

Salazar began to understand Yoder Begley’s capabilities during that time. They implemented tools at the Oregon Project’s disposal, such as anti-gravity, and underwater treadmills, and therapy opportunities.

“Alberto had the same learning curve I did, unfortunately,” Andrew says. “He tried to push her limits and found out she couldn’t do it. After the first year, he realized she had to cross-train.”

By last fall, Yoder Begley had developed a base and rounded into form. Then, she developed plantar fasciitis in her right foot. She had surgery on Jan. 21.

“I had to have surgery because I couldn’t get up on my toes,” she says.

The surgery went so well that Yoder Begley was on the bike the next day. By March, she started doing workouts. She had only 15 weeks to prepare for the trials.

Yoder Begley had built such a solid base that her fitness returned quickly. Just prior to the trials, “I had about 10 weeks where just every workout was better than the last,” she says. “I was injury-free, and I felt great. It was just the most amazing 10 weeks. You never have times like that.”

----------------

A time trial the Saturday before the 10K proved Yoder Begley was ready to race. Andrew paced her through 5,000 meters in 15:29, just five seconds off her personal record.

“I knew I was fit,” she says. “I knew I was ready to go.”

Because Yoder Begley needed to place in the top three and hit the qualifying standard, tactics would be paramount.

“We knew going in that there was a really good shot that she was going to be one of three or four in the race to contend for the top three spots,” Andrew says. “We knew that if we put her in a time trial situation she could run the time. The question was: Could she do both on the same day?”

Yoder Begley needed to average a little more than 76 seconds per lap to hit the standard. The first lap went out in 82 seconds. The next was an 84. Those were precious seconds that Yoder Begley would have to earn back later in the race.

Magdalena Lewy Boulet, who had made the Olympic marathon team in April, forged to the front and picked up the pace. Yoder Begley sat on her outside shoulder, following Salazar’s instructions to stay in second or third for the first 5K. The next five laps were back on pace.

1 | 2 Next Page >>

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit