UWM alum reflects on her third-place run in Grandma's Marathon

Dot McMahan, a Hilbert, Wis., native running for the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, knocked three minutes off her previous marathon best and surged to a third-place finish in the highly competitive Grandma's Marathon earlier this month.

Two years after giving birth to her daughter, Elizabeth, McMahan found the right training mix and the right race to take another stride toward an Olympic run in 2012. She was eighth in the U.S. Marathon Trials in 2008, when she ran a 2:35:02.

In an interview with Runner's World, McMahan reflected on her success along Lake Superior.

"The lead girls were two and a half minutes up on me at the halfway point, so I didn't know where they were at. Lucky for me, I had coaches that were out there on the course multiple times and they let me know what was going on in front of me because you can't see that, you don't know where they're at. I believe I was in 10th place at the halfway point and just let people come back to me. I really didn't change my pace throughout the race until about five miles to go, and then at that point, I said 'it's time to go.' I knew I was closing in on third place and so that became my focus at that point."

McMahan ran the second half of Grandma's more than a minute faster than the first half, and finished in 2:31:48, a 5:48 pace over the 26.2 miles.

A conference champion in the 800 meters at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, McMahan is now looking to build the speed she needs to compete with the best in the world.

"Because I'm lacking; I'm not a fast 5K and 10K girl," she told writer Peter Gambaccini. "Obviously, I'd like to break 34:00 in the 10K and I would love to break 16:00 in the 5K. Those are some of the bigger goals out there. And perhaps a half-marathon as well. I haven't raced a half-marathon with a full segment of training in a long time. I would like to get after that and break 1:13, and try and get those things accomplished before we start training for the Trials. Kind of a big plate."