How bad does Shalane Flanagan want to be the first woman across the finish line on Boylston Street? In an interview with Anderson Cooper for 60 Minutes, Flanagan says she would rather win the Boston Marathon than an Olympic medal.
No American woman has won the Boston Marathon since Lisa Larsen Weidenbach in 1985.
Just days after the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon, Flanagan was the first runner to commit to this year’s race. The native Bostonian called the attack a “personal attack on my city.”
In the past year, Flanagan competed at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow finishing 8th. She still trains under coach Jerry Schumacher in Portland, but also travels to Flagstaff for altitude training and Boston for practice on the marathon course. Schumacher opens up about Flanagan’s training in the interview with Cooper.
60 minutes captured footage of Flanagan training in Boston, where she noted that she never crosses the finish line.
Cooper laced up his shoes for a 400-meter run on the Michael Johnson track at Nike’s World Headquarters. Flanagan smoked the reporter as she ran marathon pace against his fastest sprint.
