St. George mom qualifies for 2016 Olympic Trials in the marathon


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SALT LAKE CITY — Avid long-distance runner Amber Holt Green had competed in 24 marathons when she set out to qualify for a spot in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials.

Fourteen months and five marathons later, the St. George mother of three has accomplished her goal.

On June 20, Green finished the 'Grandma's Marathon' in Duluth, Minnesota, with a personal-best time of 2 hours, 41 minutes and 19 seconds — 1:41 faster than the U.S. Olympic Trials' qualifying standard for women. The race represented a huge personal triumph for Green, whose previous four attempts to crack the Olympic Trials had resulted in her finishing within a minute of qualifying.

"I definitely wanted to quit at times," Green said. "But then again, the bigger drive for me was this hunger that was insatiable until I finished it. I wanted to show my kids that, yeah, it did not work out for me the first time, and I wanted to prove to them that you just keep trying. You get back up and you do it again, and you get back up and you do it again. But to be honest, I had no intention of really having it take me five times."

Courtesy: Amber Green

Green now gets the opportunity to run in the nation's most competitive marathon race when the Olympic Trials come to Los Angeles in February, the place where the top-three fastest men and women will be officially named to the U.S. Olympic Team. Although Green herself sees Olympic qualification as a long shot, that won't be keeping her from enjoying every moment of her much-deserved 26.22 mile-long victory lap.

"My goal was to qualify and to be a part of that group," Green said. Realistically, the girls that will go to the Olympics are like Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher and Desiree Linden. Those are amazing girls, and I just want to be in the race with them, so that's the honor for me."

But it wasn't always Green's dream to race against the nation's top runners. She had run no more than three miles continuously prior to signing up for her first-ever marathon in 2000. After months of pushing her body to new limits, Green finished that race with a time of 4:23.37.

"I thought that was it," Green recalls. "One and done, sweet, check it off my list."

But running continued to be a part of her life after she married her husband, Matt, in 2002. The two committed to running the St. George Marathon as a couple later that in that year, where together they finished with a time of 4:05.26.

From there, Green was officially hooked. She would re-enter the St. George Marathon each following year as long as she wasn't preoccupied with giving birth to one of her three sons, and even ran the 2008 marathon only three months removed from the birth of her third child. She finished that one in 3:30.51 seconds.

Following that race, Green began a more serious focus on increasing her training.

"I started working harder and tried to get faster," Green said. "I put in more speed and tempo work and I've (been able) to drop my marathon time a lot."

That fine-tuning would pay off for Green, who went on to finish first in the St. George Marathon in 2012 and 2014. Green's winning times of 2:43.00 would have qualified her for the Olympic Trials, but the course's steep elevation drop exceeded the 450-feet limit required for Trials consideration.

As for the future, Green and her family aren't quite sure what life's next big adventure will entail.

"We'll just take one at a time," Green said. "Who knows? We have three kids, and I think we want to possibly have more. I think that would come first but we'll get this race done and then see what happens."

Editor's note: This article incorrectly stated that the St. George Marathon lacks official USA Track and Field certification for being too downhill. The article has been updated to clarify that the St. George Marathon fails to meet the USA Track and Field's requirement as an Olympic Trials qualifying course due to its 2600-feet elevation drop, which exceeds USATF's 450-feet limit.

Alex Clark is a sports writing intern for KSL.com. He currently studies digital journalism at BYU. Email: alclark35@gmail.com Twitter: alclark35

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