Grabill leans on local training to win women's race
Nell Rojas might be a household name in the Boulder running community. Yet back in 2019, when Molly Grabill competed in the Bolder Boulder of the first time, Rojas was a complete stranger.
Rojas won the women's citizen's race in 2019, and since then has twice posted the top time by an American woman at the Boston Marathon, including last month.
Yet that rise to national prominence still was in the future for Rojas on that day four years ago, and Grabill was unfamiliar with the woman who eventually crossed the finish line first.
"I'd never heard of Nell before and I was just like, ‘ Who's this chick?'" Grabill recalled with a laugh. "Now we're training partners."
Rojas did not compete at the 43rd Bolder Boulder on Monday, but she returned to her hometown race as the official starter alongside her father Ric, the winner of the inaugural Bolder Boulder in 1979.
Rojas made no misgivings about her allegiances at Monday's race when she declared to the masses be
fore they set off from the starting line "Molly's going to win."
Grabill made a prophet out of her training partner, winning the women's citizen's race in Boulder's 10-kilometer festival.
A former distance standout at Oregon, Grabill was a five-time All-american for the Ducks. Grabill was training in Colorado when she first ran the Bolder Boulder in 2019, when Nell
Rojas won the citizen's race 40 years after her father won the inaugural race. Since then, Grabill began training with the Boulderbased Rojas Running, and she credits her work with one of Boulder's foremost running families for taking her skills to a new level.
"I was a little embarrassed," Grabill said of her training partner's pre-race announcement. "But having her and Ric has really
made me such a better runner. I was so embarrassed about it, but I'm glad I could back it up."
SCHNEIDERMAN WINS MEN'S RACE>>
Leading up to the 43rd running of the Bolder Boulder, Ben Schneiderman didn't feel great about a lot of his workouts. He felt great on race day, however.
On Monday, Schneiderman won the men's citizen's race at the Bolder
Boulder, using a strong final push to finish in 31 minutes, 1.88 seconds.
"It's pretty exciting," Schneiderman said. "I qualified for the Olympic trials in the marathon in December at the California International Marathon, so I kind of decided to take a break from the full marathon and run a couple of shorter races after that before the fall.
“So I kind of picked out Bolder Boulder because it's local and it's a great race. It feels good."
Josh Romine was second, in 31:06.98, while Max Sannes was third, in 31:17.50.
Schneiderman was in third for much of the race, but surged past Romine and Sannes on the final uphill stretch.
"I wanted to kind of go after those front two," he said. "They were ahead of me for most of the race, but I thought I could maybe get them on the hill there at the end, which is how it played out.
"I'm strong on hills. The uphill final mile definitely helped me. Usually on those downhill stretches is where it seemed like they would pull away a little bit and then I would get back on the uphill a little bit."