35 | Janet Cain

09/14/23 • 70 min

Starting Line 1928

Janet Cain is a former USA Track & Field National Marathon Champion in both the 55-59 and 60-64 age group. She set a Napa Valley Marathon record for that latter age group in 2014, finishing the race in 3:43:39. Her life has been a series of exciting wins and heartbreaking losses. Now 72 and living in Sonoma, CA, where she has a clinical psychology practice, Cain is still running strong and posting faster times now that she is working with a coach for the first time in her running career. The biggest change has been adapting to running in the visually impaired division.

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34 | Lou Peyton

Lou Peyton was one of the first women to complete the Grand Slam of ultrarunning, completing four 100-mile races in the summer of 1989. And in fact, she went on to complete a fifth 100-miler that same year. Peyton started running just a few weeks after her first child was born in 1968. She's also the co-founder, with her husband, of the Arkansas Traveler, a 100 mile race that's still going on today.

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36 | PattiSue Plumer (part 2)

This week, we bring you the second part of the story of Olympian PattiSue Plumer— a professional distance runner in the late 80s and early 90s. PattiSue was a two-time NCAA champion and nine-time All American at Stanford. She went on to win four U.S. national titles and make two Olympic teams, placing 13th in the 3K at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and fifth in the 3K and 10th in the 1500 at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. She was also the first American woman to break 15 minutes in the 5k, setting the national record of 14:59 in 1989. PattiSue started coaching on the side during her professional running career, and went on to assistant coaching stints at her alma mater, Stanford, as well as the University of Texas, where she remained until this past summer.