Running News Daily

If you’ve spent early mornings on the trails near downtown Austin, Texas you’ve probably crossed paths with Sarah Lancaster — 5 feet, 8 inches of mostly limbs and ponytail, casually eating up miles faster than you could drive on the Hike and Bike Trail, or sprinting so fast around the Austin High track off Lady Bird Lake that her male training partners have to tag each other in for pacing duty.

Lancaster is not just the fastest runner in Austin. She's one of the fastest women in the entire country, and she's competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., on Friday in both the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs.

Her personal bests of 4 minutes, 5.55 seconds and 15:13.56 are only a few seconds off the Olympic standards of 4:04.20 and 15:10, meaning she can make this summer's Tokyo Olympics team if she can shave a few seconds off her best times and place in the top three.

Texas legend Trey Hardee, a 2012 Olympic silver medalist in the decathlon, recently declared Lancaster the best athlete in Longhorns history on Twitter, although that actually has as much to do with her pedigree as a dual-sport athlete at UT in tennis and basketball as it does her running resume.

At 33 years old, Lancaster is nearly 15 years behind most of her competitors in terms of specific training for distance running. She works full-time as an attorney in Austin, but nearly everyone who has run with her or coached her agrees: the former tennis ace possesses an unbeatable work ethic and killer instinct that makes her a natural on the track, no matter how late she found the sport.

Tennis beginnings

Lancaster grew up in San Antonio playing every sport offered, but quickly found herself drawn to tennis and basketball. She started taking tennis lessons when she was six years old and was competing in statewide tournaments by the time she was 11.

Lancaster's mother, Kelly, says Sarah was competitive "in everything. It wasn't necessarily sports," and that she inadvertently stoked the fire a few times when Sarah drew a tough opponent during a travel tournament. 

“I would say, ‘Oh gosh, you play so-and-so today, I just hope you get a point,’” Kelly Lancaster said. “Because maybe it was one of the top girls in Texas. She’s commented that I’d pack up our bags to check out of the hotel because I knew she was playing somebody (who was a top seed). And you can always go check back in, but if you don’t check out by 10 or 11, then you have to pay for a whole ‘nother day.

“She said, ‘I’d see mom packing up the bags and think, ‘Obviously, she doesn’t think I’m gonna win today, so I’m gonna show her!' I really didn’t do it for that reason. I was thinking, ‘We’re done, I’m tired, we’re going home.’ Little things like that, I guess, motivated her a little bit to prove me wrong.”

Lancaster played tennis, basketball and ran track during her freshman year at Alamo Heights High School before deciding to enroll in a tennis academy that her coach established more than 200 miles away in Conroe. The academy is no longer in existence, but at the time was affiliated with John Roddick, the older brother of tennis star Andy Roddick.

“I was 15 at the time and, looking back at it, I can’t believe my parents let me do that,” Lancaster said.

A typical day at the tennis academy included two hours of practice in the morning, home school sessions for five to six hours, and another afternoon practice session that could last anywhere from two to three hours. There were about five other female boarders, more young men, and a number of local kids from the area who drove in for practice every day.

“We had a good time,” Lancaster said. “It was definitely not your normal high school experience. ... We were at tournaments a lot, we would go to the movies or just normal things like that ... (but) you’re there to play tennis and you’re there to get good, you’re not there to be partying and having fun.”

Lancaster thrived in the environment, improving her national and state rankings to become one of the best players in Texas.

“For me, it was — I want to go and I want to get as good as I can and see what I can do,” she said of her motivation to attend the tennis academy. “Maybe a little part of me thought I was going to play professionally one day, but I think the focus for me was more on college ... making sure I was going to be recruited.”

Lancaster committed to Texas — "hands down my first choice" — but then suffered a stress fracture in her back and had to take a few months off from tennis. She moved back home and re-enrolled at Alamo Heights, where her old friends convinced her to play basketball again.

It was an easy sell. After all, she was already the best player when she was only a freshman.

"I talked to the UT tennis coach," Lancaster said. "'Hey, you know, I'd kind of like to play basketball. I think it would be fun for me and it might be good for me, coming back from this injury, to do a different sport.'" And she was agreeable to it as long as I taped my ankles for every practice or game."

The move was eerily prescient for her career at Texas. Also prescient — she ran a few track races (she said her best time was a 58-second 400 meters as a freshman).

Texas fight

Given her experience living away from home at the tennis academy, Lancaster’s transition to college and NCAA athletics was pretty seamless. The Texas women’s tennis team, which recently captured its third national championship, was solidly ranked within the top 10 to 20 programs in the nation during her years there, and as a senior in 2010, she helped the Longhorns to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament while totaling a 25-8 singles record, including an 11-0 mark in the Big 12.

“She is one of the best competitors I ever coached,” former UT women’s tennis coach Patty Fendick-McCain said in a text message. “She was the most solid player I ever coached at her position and when the chips were down, I always knew she would come through. She didn’t care what line she played, but that she would get a ‘W’ and contribute to the team.”

Of her own heroics on the court, Lancaster says simply that her personal highlight of her college tennis career was “probably the fact that we beat A&M every time we played them.”

Bored over the summer after her senior year and with one extra semester of school to complete, Lancaster and one of her tennis teammates filmed a video of her doing a trick layup shot. They sent it to their coach, who forwarded the video to the women’s basketball coach at the time, Gail Goestenkors.

To Lancaster’s surprise, Goestenkors told her to go play some pick-up games that summer with the team.

"I went and played with them over the summer, and it was really just pick-up games, coaches couldn't come," Lancaster said. "I didn't really feel like I was completely in over my head, you know — I wasn't like, 'Oh, I'm better than any of these people that have been playing their whole lives and have been recruited to play at the University of Texas,' (but) I felt like I could hold my own."

Sight unseen, based on positive feedback from the players on the team, Lancaster was invited to officially join the roster in the fall.

"None of the coaches had ever seen me play and they basically told me that they would let me play on the team, which was a little bit terrifying,” she said. “The first practice, I was like, please do not miss a layup, please do not miss a layup.

"I think part of it was, the team was really young, there were six or seven freshmen. There was really only one other senior at the time on the team and I think they were just kind of like, 'Sarah knows how to be a student-athlete, she can help these freshmen.' And I guess they confirmed with some other people that I wasn't a terrible basketball player."

Lancaster stepped into the leadership role naturally, had fun at practice and was fine with getting less minutes as the season went on. Her personal highlight from her basketball career didn’t even take place in the Big 12.

"My only basketball highlight is in seventh grade, when I scored 46 points in a game," she said with a straight face. 

'That’s just not something you see every day'

Paras Shah remembers the first time Lancaster showed up to a casual evening workout with RAW Running a few years ago. She made it up Wilke Road — a notoriously brutal 300-meter, 10.8% grade hill in the Barton Hills neighborhood — for all eight repeats, just a few strides behind Shah and the other former NCAA Division I male runners in the group.

"I asked her where she ran in college and she said she didn’t," said Shah, who ran at LSU. "(I thought) that’s obviously not possible. I just didn’t believe her.”

Lancaster was always naturally fast.

In mile time trials throughout her athletic career, she’d routinely clock in just under 5:30.

"Every running drill we did, Sarah was fastest and had the best endurance," Fendick-McCain said. "Her attitude was to leave blood on the court if necessary. She had better endurance than any other player I ever coached or that she played against. If it was a test of wills and endurance, she would always find a way to win."

When Lancaster started law school, she played in various recreational leagues and just had fun ("law school was the most free time I've ever had in my life," she said) while casually completing her first half-marathon. But a few years into the workforce, she happened to meet UT club running coach Kyle Higdon, a UT graduate student, and she asked him to train her to break five minutes in the mile.

"I just felt like that would be a cool thing to say I could do," she said. "And I had actually talked to multiple guys who told me that they tried to do it and couldn't do it. So I was, you know, even more motivated to try."

With light mileage (20-25 miles per week) and a few basic workouts under her belt, she clocked 4:46 in her first 1,500 meter race — the equivalent of a 5:07 mile. By the end of the spring, she had improved to about 4:30 for the 1,500, an incredible time for a brand new runner, albeit one who was 28.

As she watched the Rio Olympics that summer, she wondered: Could she qualify for the 2020 Olympic Trials?

“I had no concept of what a good time was,” she said.

The idea of the Trials wasn’t quite a solidified goal at that point — just a little bug in her head that popped up every now and then. With Higdon finishing his studies and moving on with his career, Lancaster evaluated her group running options, which, in Austin, are mostly marathon training groups that meet in the wee hours of the morning, or more casual after-work clubs.

She chose the latter, and started showing up to RAW. That’s where she met Shah, who helps organize the annual Schrader 1600 every May for high school runners and members of the community. 

At the 2018 event, with about two years of casual training under her belt, Lancaster ran 4:37.55 for 1,600 meters. The girl who kicked the boys’ butts at RAW workouts every Tuesday was legit.

Mike Kurvath remembers the race very vividly. Then 28, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) track alum ran 4:17 in his section. At the time, he was thinking of moving on from running competitively.

"I remember that very specifically, because in the final 200 meters, she elbowed her way through a couple of high schoolers and it was a really strong move," Kurvath said. "That’s just not something you see every day.

"I was thinking that I was going to be done with running. After I saw that race ... it was actually quite inspiring. After a couple weeks of training with Sarah, you knew the potential was there. It gave me a second chance at my own running."

Kevin Kimball, a UT track alum, offered to help train her.

"Kevin was like, 'you could definitely run the Olympic Trials qualifying time,'" Lancaster said. “In the back of my mind, I had always thought I could … I haven't really been doing that much training and I can already run this fast, like, why can't I run, you know, sub-4:10 in the 1,500? I mean, looking back, that is kind of crazy to think about, but it probably benefited me that I had no real knowledge of running because I didn't see any limitations for myself.”

To make the 2021 Olympic Trials, the qualifying time in the 1,500 meters was 4:06, the equivalent of a 4:25 mile and 4:24 1,600 — a full 13 seconds faster than she had just run.

"Kevin was like, 'I think you can do it,' and I was like, 'all right, well, I'll give it a go.'"

2021 Olympic Trials

Lancaster definitely falls into the camp of athletes who benefited from having an extra pandemic year to train in preparation for the Olympic Trials.

She struggled with injuries in 2019 but regained form in early 2020, running an impressive 15:56 in a 5K time trial at the beginning of the pandemic. That made her consider switching events. She improved her time to 15:34 in December, then ran her Olympic Trials qualifying marks in a two-week period in May.

The major change she made in that six-month period was working with 1996 Olympian Juli Benson. The longtime coach has mentored some of the world’s best distance runners, including Jenny Simpson, whom she guided to a gold medal in the 1,500 at the 2011 World Championships.

"I was very taken aback," Benson said when Lancaster reached out to her. "That’s how unusual it is. I’ve been in the sport for a very long time and her story is really unique.

"I was certainly curious, but it was fairly late into the Olympic year to take on a new athlete who was trying to qualify for the Trials, but her story was so unique and her approach and perspective so intriguing that I definitely wanted to take up the challenge and she’s proven to be remarkable at every turn.

"She can handle everything I throw at her and it’s been really fun. It’s so rare and unique and surprising and refreshing and all of those adjectives, but she is an incredible athlete, I’ll say that."

For the Trials, Lancaster decided to focus on the 1,500, where she's the 14th seed, but also declared in the 5,000, where she's the 17th seed, as a backup plan in case she were to fall or otherwise not advance from her preliminary race. The first round of both races are Friday; the finals are on Monday.

Kurvath, who recently clocked his own personal best of 14:34 in the 5,000, said he knows Lancaster is capable of breaking the 15-minute barrier because they do all of their workouts together.

"I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the workouts, I’ve done the workouts," he said. "She’s been there with me and I just ran 14:34."

Benson thinks Lancaster is just tapping the surface of what she can do in the sport. 

"The other thing that's really, really fascinating about Sarah — she has got the most incredible race instincts," Benson said. "She races as if she's been on a world-class stage for seven or eight years. Her instincts are brilliant. ... I think she really loves to compete and it’s really no more complicated than that. Yes, she has interesting genetics, yes, she has really interesting talent, but I think she keeps it really simple and just wants to go out and see how many people she can beat.”

Lancaster isn’t sure if she’ll keep racing after this year. The World Athletics Championships are hosted by the United States next year, which presents a unique opportunity. She’s engaged to be married this fall. She’ll be 34 next year. For right now, it’s all about soaking in the realization of a long-awaited dream. 

And no, she’s not totally sure where her affinity for middle-distance running comes from, either.

"Tennis is an individual sport," she said. "It’s a high-pressure situation, you know you’re out there playing someone and you can only look at yourself (for) the outcome. You can’t blame anyone else. I think that translates to running. It’s you out there.

"I think I’ve always just wanted to win, I’ve always wanted to compete well and that’s just kind of ingrained in me. So I don’t know if I have a better answer for you than that.”

Most Olympic marathoners spend their youth focused on running. They join track clubs, compete in national championships, and pursue the sport from an early age.

Julia Mayer’s journey was very different.

Today, Mayer is Austria’s marathon record holder, a multiple national record holder on the roads, and an Olympian. Yet for much of her athletic life, running was not her primary sport.

For 16 years, she played soccer.

Then she discovered something that would change her life.

“I noticed that I was really fast in the fun runs and that it was really, really fun,” Mayer said when reflecting on her transition from soccer to distance running.

What began as curiosity quickly became a passion. She eventually made the bold decision to leave soccer behind and focus entirely on running. It was a move that surprised many people around her, but Mayer believed she had found her true athletic calling.

The decision proved to be the right one.

Within a few years, Mayer developed into one of Europe’s top marathon runners. Her steady improvement carried her from local races to the international stage, where she began rewriting Austria’s record books.

She now holds Austrian records in the marathon, half marathon, and road 10K. Her marathon best of 2:26:08 established her as the fastest female marathoner in Austrian history. Her performances in the half marathon and 10K have further cemented her place among the country’s all-time great distance runners.

Her rise culminated with qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

Competing in the Olympic marathon represented the realization of a dream. On one of the most challenging marathon courses ever used for the Olympics, Mayer ran courageously against the strongest field in the world and finished 55th in her Olympic debut.

Behind the scenes, success has come through extraordinary dedication. During marathon preparation, Mayer trains twice a day and covers approximately 200 kilometers, or 124 miles, each week. The workload demands discipline, patience, and a deep commitment to continuous improvement. 

What makes her story especially inspiring is not simply the records or the Olympic appearance.

It is the fact that she found her greatest talent later than many elite runners.

In a sport where athletes are often identified at a young age, Mayer’s journey serves as a reminder that potential does not always reveal itself early. Sometimes it takes years of experience, a willingness to try something new, and the courage to follow a different path. 

The former soccer player who once chased a ball across a field is now chasing history on the roads of Europe.

And according to those closest to her, her best performances may still be ahead.

For runners of every age and ability, Julia Mayer’s story delivers a powerful lesson: it is never too late to discover what you are capable of.

From soccer player to Olympian, her journey proves that remarkable achievements can begin when least expected.

Megan Keith produced the performance of her career in Oslo on Thursday night, shattering one of Scotland’s longest-standing distance running records and cementing her place among Britain’s greatest female 3000m runners.

The 24-year-old clocked a sensational 8:28.35 over 3000m, breaking the Scottish outdoor record that had stood for nearly four decades. In doing so, Keith eclipsed the previous mark of 8:29.02, set by Scottish legend Yvonne Murray back in 1988, ending a record reign that had lasted 38 years.

Keith’s breakthrough run was more than just a national record. The performance also propelled her to third on the UK outdoor all-time list, placing her behind only two of Britain’s most celebrated distance runners — Paula Radcliffe, who leads the rankings with 8:22.20, and Laura Weightman, whose 8:26.07 remains the second-fastest outdoor mark by a British woman.

The significance of Keith’s achievement is amplified by the calibre of athletes she now joins in the record books. For decades, Murray’s mark stood as one of Scottish athletics’ most untouchable records, surviving generations of elite competitors. Keith has now succeeded where many outstanding runners have fallen short, announcing herself as one of the leading distance talents in British athletics.

Her time also compares favourably with the best performances produced indoors. Olympic medallist Laura Muir ran 8:26.41 indoors in Karlsruhe in 2017, underlining just how exceptional Keith’s outdoor effort in Oslo truly was.

The run continues a remarkable rise for the Scottish star, whose progression over recent seasons has transformed her from a promising prospect into a genuine force on the international stage. Running with confidence and composure against elite competition, Keith demonstrated both the speed and endurance required to challenge the very best in Europe and beyond.

With the World Championship season gathering momentum, Keith’s record-breaking display sends a powerful message. Not only has she etched her name into Scottish athletics history, but she has also established herself as a serious contender in one of the sport’s most competitive events.

In Oslo, Megan Keith did far more than break a record. She ended a 38-year wait, climbed into the upper echelon of British distance running, and delivered a performance that may prove to be a defining moment in her career.

British middle-distance talent Phoebe Gill took another significant step forward in her return to top form, producing a determined victory over 800 metres at the Meeting de Marseille in France on Wednesday.

Competing in challenging, wind-affected conditions, the 19-year-old demonstrated both resilience and composure as she held off a late charge from Switzerland's Veronica Vancardo to secure the win in 2:00.81. Vancardo finished just three hundredths of a second behind in 2:00.84, underlining the fiercely contested nature of the race.

While the margin of victory was narrow, the result represented another encouraging milestone for Gill as she continues to rebuild momentum following her injury setback. The young Briton showed impressive race awareness and strength in the closing stages, maintaining her advantage despite the difficult conditions that made fast running a challenge throughout the evening.

The Marseille triumph adds to a growing body of evidence that Gill is steadily progressing toward her best form. Earlier in her comeback campaign, she clocked 2:01.50 for 800m in Bydgoszcz before demonstrating her versatility with a strong 4:05.53 performance over 1500 metres at the BMC Grand Prix meeting in Trafford.

Those performances have highlighted not only her improving fitness but also her ability to compete across multiple distances as she carefully builds her season. The Marseille victory now provides further confirmation that the European junior star is moving in the right direction.

Gill emerged as one of Britain's most exciting middle-distance prospects through a series of breakthrough performances as a teenager, earning widespread recognition for her fearless racing style and remarkable maturity. Injury temporarily interrupted that upward trajectory, but her recent results suggest she is steadily rediscovering the form that made her one of the sport's brightest young talents.

With each race, the signs of progress become increasingly evident. Winning in difficult conditions and under pressure from a quality field is often a stronger indicator than a fast time alone, and Gill's latest success demonstrated exactly those qualities.

As the summer season gathers pace, the Marseille victory offers another confidence boost for the British teenager, whose return continues to gain momentum. If her recent progression is any indication, Gill could soon find herself back among the leading names on the European middle-distance circuit. 

The NCAA Track and Field Championships delivered a moment few could have predicted as Ja’Kobe Tharp produced one of the most astonishing performances in the history of sprint hurdling, rewriting the record books in spectacular fashion.

Competing in the opening round of the men’s 110-meter hurdles, the Auburn star stunned the athletics world by clocking an incredible 12.75 seconds, becoming the first athlete ever to break the 12.80-second barrier. In doing so, he eclipsed the long-standing world record of 12.80 set by Aries Merritt in 2012, a mark that had stood as one of the sport’s most revered achievements for more than a decade.

What makes Tharp’s breakthrough even more remarkable is the scale of his improvement. Entering the championships, the defending NCAA and U.S. champion had recorded a season-best of 13.05 seconds. Yet under the brightest spotlight, he unleashed a performance that exceeded every expectation, slicing an extraordinary 0.26 seconds from his personal best in a race that instantly became one of the greatest ever run.

The achievement sent shockwaves throughout the track and field community. While Tharp arrived in Eugene as one of the leading contenders for the NCAA title, few envisioned a performance capable of redefining the limits of the event. Instead, the American hurdler delivered a race for the ages, combining flawless technique, explosive speed, and impeccable rhythm from the first hurdle to the finish line.

The historic run not only secured his place in athletics history but also transformed the outlook of the championship. With the world record now in his possession, Tharp advances to the final as the overwhelming favorite, carrying momentum that could make an already unforgettable weekend even more extraordinary.

For years, the 12.80 barrier appeared untouchable. On a stunning day at the NCAA Championships, Ja’Kobe Tharp proved otherwise, producing the kind of performance that reminds fans why sport remains so unpredictable. In a matter of seconds, he turned a routine qualifying round into a landmark moment that will be remembered for generations.

The world record no one saw coming is now a reality—and Ja’Kobe Tharp is the man who changed history.

A new chapter in middle-distance running may have begun in Oslo after American teenager Cooper Lutkenhaus produced one of the most remarkable performances of the season, narrowly defeating reigning Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi in a thrilling men's 800m contest at the Diamond League meeting.

The 17-year-old sensation shocked a world-class field by crossing the finish line first in a race that came down to the smallest of margins. After an intense battle over the final metres, Lutkenhaus held off Wanyonyi by just one hundredth of a second, producing a dramatic finish that left the packed stadium in disbelief.

From the opening lap, the pace was relentless as the leading contenders positioned themselves for a fierce showdown. As the athletes entered the home straight, Wanyonyi appeared poised to unleash his trademark finishing kick. However, Lutkenhaus refused to be intimidated, matching the Olympic champion stride for stride before producing a perfectly timed lean at the line to secure a historic victory.

The result marks a breakthrough moment for the young American, who continues to establish himself as one of the brightest talents in global athletics. Defeating an Olympic champion at a Diamond League event is a feat many athletes spend entire careers pursuing, yet Lutkenhaus achieved it before reaching adulthood.

For Wanyonyi, the narrow defeat does little to diminish his status as one of the world's premier 800m runners. The Kenyan once again demonstrated his exceptional class and competitiveness, pushing the race to a world-class standard and forcing his young rival to deliver the performance of a lifetime.

Beyond the result itself, the race offered a glimpse into what could become one of the sport's most exciting rivalries in the years ahead. With established stars and emerging talents now pushing each other to new heights, the men's 800m continues to evolve into one of athletics' most captivating events.

On a memorable night in Oslo, the spotlight belonged to Cooper Lutkenhaus. At just 17 years old, he stood toe-to-toe with an Olympic champion and emerged victorious, announcing himself to the athletics world in spectacular fashion.