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Alumna tries out for Olympic marathon

By Lyndel Owens '10
May 7, 2008

Jenna Boren '99 runs with the best of the best. A marathoner since 2001, the St. Paul chiropractor competed at the Olympic time trials in Boston last month, where she placed 94th out of 124 runners with a time of 2:49:34. Although she won't be heading to Beijing in August (only the top three finishers make the U.S. Olympic team), Boren says her time in Boston was well spent. "I treated quite a few of the Minnesota runners who ran in Boston, and I went out and cheered for them on Monday," Boren says. "It was exciting for me to see them finish well and reach their goal."

BorenJenna
Boren
At 31, Boren is a young runner with plenty of road ahead. The marathon she ran to try out for the Olympics was one of the highlights of her running career. "That was the most spectators I've ever had at a marathon," says Boren, who hopes to participate in the 2012 Olympic trials. "The crowds were great and the course was cool. I just tried to make the most of what I had."

Boren will continue running 12 to 15 miles every day and training with Macalester College men's cross-country coach Matt Haugen '79, with whom she has worked for four years. "You just kind of have to take each day, each week as one moment in time because some things happen in training and you just have to focus on the positive," Boren says.

Though she is unwaveringly dedicated and scores impressive finish times, Boren didn't start running competitively until she arrived at St. Olaf. She credits Chris Daymont, the women's cross-country and track and field coach at St. Olaf, with inspiring her to become a serious runner.

"After I graduated I wanted to run a marathon, and then I caught the marathon bug," Boren says. When her finish times consistently broke three hours, she began thinking about qualifying for the Olympic trials. She first qualified with an 11th place finish at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth in June 2006, then capitalized on that success with a personal record and another qualifying time of 2:42:39 at the Houston Marathon in January 2007. Both times make the 2008 standard time of 2:47:00, under which runners had to finish to run at the Olympic trials.

Contact Kari VanDerVeen at 507-786-3970 or vanderve@stolaf.edu.