Four years ago, an out of shape and injured Kara Roy was struggling to run 20 minutes every other day. Two years ago, she ran her first marathon. Today, she is a qualifier for the 2008 Olympic Trials, having won the Colorado Marathon on May 6th in 2:46:30, which was 30 seconds under the qualifying standard.

While 30 seconds might seem to be cutting it close, Kara was pretty confident she would hit her time. The course, which descends the scenic Poudre Canyon and ends in downtown Fort Collins, was a familiar friend. Kara, a Fort Collins resident, won the race in 2006 and came in second the year before. Training had also been going very well, even with a rough start in 2007. This year's frequent snowstorms created a new challenge to running and led to a mini burn out. After taking a week off in January, Kara resumed training, only to slip on ice and injure her right hip flexor. She was concerned when her injury started bothering her at mile eight, but by the halfway mark she was at an even split (1:23) and ended up finishing more than five minutes faster than her previous best.

Today, Kara is all smiles, but the road here was not easy. An intense racing schedule and a hamstring injury, which plagued her running career at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, left her frustrated and mentally worn out with the sport after college. She stopped running for a year and a half. During that time she tried a triathlon but laughs, her blue eyes sparkling, "I'm not a swimmer!" Over time, running began to call to her again. In 2003, when she and her husband, Tim, relocated to Loveland, she teamed up with Coach Jon Sinclair and began slowly working her way back. Soon after she met Physical Therapist Brad Ott, and within six months was running injury free for the first time in seven years.

Although she hadn't planned on focusing on the marathon early on, she did have an inkling she might be good at the longer distance races when she set a personal best at the 5K during a 10K race in college. She and Jon approached her first marathon, the 2005 Colorado Marathon (then the Fort Collins Old Town Marathon), conservatively, just to see what she could do. The original goal was to start the race at 8:30 pace but her training accelerated much faster than expected; she ran negative splits in the race and finished in 2:59:22 (about a 6:51 pace). The next year she ran a 2:51:32 and qualifying for the trials appeared to be within reach.

Her training coming into this year's marathon consisted of 80+ mile weeks, peaking at a whopping 104 miles. As if this wasn't enough, she also made the pivotal decision to quit her job in private banking and go back to school for occupational therapy. She juggled workouts with prerequisite classes for the OT Program she starts at CSU this fall. She also worked part-time, and still managed to spend time with her husband Tim. It's enough to make someone tired just thinking about it.

While she doesn't emphasize her hectic schedule, the work she put in is evident in her advice to aspiring runners, which she sums up in one word, "Perseverance." She stresses that the road to the Trials was really two and a half years of hard work, planning, and consistency. Kara admits it's hard to stay motivated sometimes. She often runs straight from work or school to bypass the distractions of home and make sure she sticks to her training schedule. It's nice to know that even she is human.

Despite the work load, Kara still enjoys her runs, especially her long easy days - you know, your average 22 mile run at seven minute mile pace (whew!). This love of running might be a family trait. Her dad, Jim Newton, and brother are both runners, and she followed suit, starting in sixth grade in Amarillo, Texas, with the local youth program, Kids Incorporated. Jim, at a young 60, is an ultra marathoner whose finishes include the Leadville 100 and whose active race schedule currently works out to about one marathon a month. Like father, like daughter? It's hard to decide who has the more impressive feats.

With her slight frame and spunky blond pigtails, Kara looks like any normal 27 year old and it seems she would prefer to retain that image, achieving her goals quietly. Her favorite sections of the Colorado Marathon are on the bike trail where few spectators venture. She has been the focus of a lot of attention recently, but, with the attitude of a student who does their homework and receives an "A", she wonders what all the fuss is about. She was surprised, but very touched, when even her proud Amarillo High School sent her school clothing in congratulations.

Her unassuming attitude is endearing but doesn't make her accomplishment any less impressive. Kara not only qualified for the Olympic Trials; she is the first woman to ever qualify for the Trials in a marathon located in Colorado - quite a feat for a girl with only four marathons under her belt. This achievement might have been foreshadowed by a college cross-country conference meet held in Boulder. While her Baylor teammates worried about the altitude (Waco is basically at sea-level), Kara shrugged it off and ran one of her best races ever.

Excited by her promising future in running, I keep probing her for future goals: Her outlook for the trials? Specific training? What's on the horizon past the trials? But she is firm, "I haven't thought that far ahead. I'm really trying to live more in the moment and not get too far ahead of myself."

When you look at how far she's come in four years, it's hard not to conjecture where she could be four years from now. But first things first: Marathon Olympic Trials in Boston, April 2008. And taking Kara's attitude, we'll just have to sit back and wait and see.

Marcie Glass enjoys writing during her time off from her culinary job. When not writing, eating, or watching movies, she can be found running the local trails of Fort Collins.