Rainsberger no longer “last U.S. woman”
Lisa Rainsberger answered the phone in her Colorado Springs home a second or two after Desiree Linden crossed the finish line at the Boston Marathon on Monday morning and said, “I’m crying.”
When Linden hit the tape on Boylston Street and won America’s most iconic road race, Rainsberger was no longer “the last American woman to win the Boston Marathon,” but her tears were joyful ones. Rainsberger, who won Boston on a hot day in 1985 and beat the second-place woman by eight minutes, was thrilled to shed the distinction that set her apart in the sport.
“I couldn’t be happier for Desi,” said Rainsberger, a longtime coach in Colorado Springs whose daughter, Katie, was a 10time Colorado state champion for Air Academy and is now a sophomore at track powerhouse Oregon. “It’s just going to be a great statement for the future of all our little girls who are growing up, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a runner.’ She is gutsy, she’s a bourbon drinker, she’s a beer drinker, she’s a blue-collar girl, she’s living in Michigan. It doesn’t get any better than that.
“I can’t even think right now, I’m just so happy for her.”
Conditions in Boston were miserable with temperatures hovering near 40 degrees and rain pelting runners, sometimes in sheets driven by an easterly wind that fought the runners all the way from Hopkinton.
Linden won despite doing something remarkable, slowing down in the middle of the race when American star Shalane Flanagan stepped off the course for a potty break and waiting for Flanagan to catch up before ramping back up to race pace. Flanagan won the New York City Marathon last year, becoming the first American woman to win it since 1977.
Linden and Flanagan were marathon teammates at the past two Olympics.
“Oh my gosh, I respect her so much for doing that,” Rainsberger said of Linden’s support of Flanagan. “Who does that, really? But Shalane was a winner of New York, and Desi was smart to go, ‘OK, I’m going to stay with her, I’m going to help her, we’re going to work together.’ ”