Desiree Davila Returns to the Marathon on Sunday

Published by Runner's World on Septembe 24, 2013

No American fan is likely to forget the final moments of the 2011 Boston Marathon, when it appeared that an American woman, at long last, might again break the tape on Boylston Street and wear the victor’s laurels.

The woman was Desiree Davila. The tiny Californian, a stalwart of the Michigan-based Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, was locked in a tense duel with Kenya’s Caroline Kilel, and she’d even moved into the lead less than 300 meters from the finish tape. But after a series of game and gutsy moves, Davila had no more speed to offer, and Kilel persevered, barely. Davila had been denied a history-making victory by 2 seconds, but had a huge personal best of 2:22:38. Moments later, she appeared none the worse for wear, granting a TV interview in a normal conversational tone, while an exhausted Kilel ended up sprawled on the pavement.

It seemed that we had witnessed the birth of a new American marathoning superhero, and her second place finish behind Shalane Flanagan at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2:25:55 did not dispel that notion.

But subsequently, Davila was derailed by a persistent and at first mysterious injury, one that would force her out of the London Olympics after the first few kilometers. And now, as she gets ready to race Sunday in Berlin, where she hopes to finish her first marathon in more than a year and a half, she understands that she is a reclamation project, an incremental work in progress.