Marla Lee Runyan (married name Lonergan;[1] born January 4, 1969) is an American track and field athlete, road runner and marathon runner who is legally blind. She is a three-time national champion in the women's 5000 metres. She is also an athlete that competed in both the Paralympics and the Olympics, both reaching the finals.
Runyan won four gold medals at the 1992 Summer Paralympics in the long jump and the 100, 200, and 400 meter races.[2] She also competed in cycling at those games.
1996 Olympic trials and Paralympics
She attempted to qualify for the "Able Bodied" Olympics at the 1996 U. S. Olympic Trials, finishing 10th in the Heptathlon. While failing to qualify, she ran the 800 meters in 2:04.60, a heptathlon-800m American record. This success convinced her to try distance running.
Her career as a world-class runner in able-bodied events began in 1999 at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, where she won Gold in the 1,500-meter race and was ranked second in the United States in that event in 1999 by Track and Field News. The next year, she placed eighth in the 1,500-meter in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, making Runyan the first legally blind athlete to compete in the Olympics and the highest finish by an American woman in that event.
Success at National Championships, release of autobiography
By 2001 she won her first of three consecutive 5000 metre National Championships. She also released her autobiography "No Finish Line: My Life As I See It" In 2002, she added the road 5K and 10K National Championships,[3] and married her coach, Matt Lonergan.
She finished as the top American at the 2002 New York Marathon with a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes and 10 seconds to post the second-fastest debut time ever by an American woman.
"I just think it's pretty brave, Marla's very tough, really gutsy. She's been fighting all of her life, and it comes out in her running."
She won the road 5K again in 2003 and qualified for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games by finishing second in the United States Olympic Trials (track and field). She took 2005 off to give birth to her first child, Anna Lee on September 1, but returned to the roads in 2006 winning her second national championship at 20 km (her first was in 2003).[5]
Awards and recognition
She was the USATF "Runner of the Year" in 2002 and 2006.[6]
World Records
As of April 2014[update], Runyan holds IPC World Records in the T13 classification for the 400 m, 800 m, 1500 m, 5000 m, High Jump, Long Jump and Pentathlon.[7] However, her personal bests at 3000m, 10,000m, and the marathon were also World Records, but were never ratified by the IPC. See marlarunyan.net, the Official Website of Marla Runyan.
^Lieber, Jill (2002-10-29). "Blind, Brave and Inspiring". USA Today. McLean, Virginia: Gannett. Archived from the original on 2016-11-04. Retrieved 2016-09-22.
