When Keira D’Amato neared the finish line of the Houston Marathon in 2022, through a blur of exhaustion and pain, she saw her son holding up a sign that said “Your #1 in my heart.”
She was No. 1 in another way that day, finishing the course in 2 hours, 19 minutes and 12 seconds and breaking a record for the U.S. women’s marathon that Deena Kastor had set in 2006.
News coverage of D’Amato’s triumph called it a “comeback” — she was 37 years old and had stopped competitive running because of an injury at the age of 23. After having two children, she started running simply to clear her head and lose some of the weight she’d gained during pregnancy. Her first time out the door, she ran for less than two minutes before quitting. She walked home and cried.
But she tried again two days later, and that time, was able to run for three minutes. She kept going, and little by little, she got faster and more fit. She decided to see how far being a “hobby jogger” could take her in between being a mom and selling real estate.
Pretty far, it turned out.
Even after breaking the marathon record, D’Amato didn’t rest on those laurels; she went on to set a record in the half-marathon in 2023 and now, with sponsors like Nike and Garmin, has new ambitions.
In “Don’t Call It a Comeback,” a memoir published Sept. 9 by St. Martin’s Press, D’Amato details the journey that led her from Virginia to Utah, where she’s now training with Brigham Young University coach Ed Eyestone.
Success came, she says, when she quit chasing after personal records and instead sought happiness, both in running and in her family. Her story has inspired many parents to lace up and get out the door, including a man who came up to her after a 10K race and said, “Keira, this is your fault. I’m doing this race because of you and I’ve lost 40 pounds.”
Everyone, D’Amato writes, has the potential to be a runner: “You haven’t run since the middle school fitness test? You’re a runner. You only chase your feral toddler? You’re a runner. My PR in the 5K doesn’t make me any more of a runner than you are,” she writes.
D’Amato, a newly single mother whose children are now aged 9 and 10, says that she doesn’t only run for herself, but to show others what’s possible even when they’re told that they’re old, too busy or not naturally gifted.
In an interview with the Deseret News, she talked about how her “toolbox of failures” helps to make her a better runner, what it’s like training on the BYU campus as a master runner, and why a self-professed “Richmond girl” has found a home in the mountains of Utah.
The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: What did you want to accomplish by writing this book, and why now?
Keira D’Amato: I think I knew down to my bones that I would write a book at some point, but it was after I broke the American (women’s) marathon record in 2022 that people kept telling me you should write a book, you should write a book, you should write a book. But I combatted that by saying I don’t have my ending yet. So I deferred that dream. But then I started hearing the same questions over and over again: How did I balance it as a mom? How did I go from a good runner in high school and college to the best American runner while being a mother and a full-time realtor?
And I realized that I’d figured out a lot of life lessons to help me get to this point, and had a lot of fun doing it, and I really wanted to share that with the world. But it was also scary because I started writing the book when I didn’t have the ending yet, and then I stopped myself and said, this is what the whole book is about. Not knowing if you are going to fail. Not knowing the ending. But doing it anyway.
DN: At the end of the book, it’s July 2024 and you’re moving with your family to Utah to train with Ed Eyestone and his pro team. Is that where you are now?
KD: Yes, I live in Park City, and go to Provo three days a week. Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays, I’m up super early, usually at 5 a.m. to go down to Provo and meet the team for a workout. And Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I stay in Park City and do my runs up here.
I get my kids off to school in the morning and then at 3 o’clock when they come home, it’s back to being Mom again. I do feel like at the core of me, I’m a mom raising two incredible kids — it’s mom by day, a runner by night, I guess, but not really at night.
DN: Why do you think BYU’s runners have been so successful? Is it something in the water, or the Utah air, or is it just Coach Eyestone?
KD: I think it is Ed Eyestone. He is legendary. He’s been there, he’s done that, he’s a two-time Olympian, he has accolades that could go on for days if you start listing them. I think also he’s a competitor, but I think he structured his life with gratitude and community focus and around family; so I think his perspective is incredible. He’s such a good teacher and such a good adviser — he has to be a psychologist of sorts — but it’s not overly emotional, which makes him a really strong coach.
And I do think there is something in the air of Utah — training at altitude is definitely helpful. But I think he’s just created this team that is almost a self-propelling machine now. He’s created these athletes with such good mentalities; they mentor the other athletes to have a similar good mentality, so he’s created such a special thing in Utah. I love the idea of being part of the team that he has with Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, to name a few, and of course the opportunity to train at altitude. It felt like this grand adventure where I can be supported and inspired and encouraged in a way that I never had in running before.
DN: You said in the book that it didn’t bother you when your marathon record was broken in the same year that you had set it, but it bothered me — I thought you should have gotten to hang on to the record for at least a couple of years. How do you have such a good attitude about that, and is it a goal of yours to break it again?
KD: One hundred percent, I want to break it again. But for me, it was the pursuit of the record, it wasn’t holding onto it. Moving that bar forward, helping other women feel if Keira can do it, I can do it. It’s not what I can do, it’s what we can do — what women can do, what mothers can do, what older runners can do, what people with a busy life can do.
I feel like I was showing other people what we are capable of, and if I empowered Emily (Sisson) even less than 1% for her to go after it and move the bar forward, I feel really proud of that. And I felt connected to her, because I went through some deep, dark places when I broke the American record, and I thought, wow, she went through the same things.
I’d already respected her as a runner, but I also felt an immediate kinship with her, that we had both struggled and overcome a lot, even just to get to the starting line.
I’m proud to be part of the history and move it forward, but it wasn’t my record to own for the rest of my life.
DN: In the book, you talk about the pain you went through as early as mile 20. What got you through those remaining 6-plus miles, and are there any lessons from that experience that are applicable to you today, and to other people?
KD: I think it’s important to run the mile you’re in. So, during that race, I was taking it mile by mile, water stop by water stop. I wasn’t thinking I had six more miles to go or 10 more miles to go. I was thinking, let’s see if I can get through this mile and then we’ll get through another one. That helped. The finish line or the top of the mountain is intimidating, but if you look down and work through the now, that makes it easier.
But also, the notion of ‘sticking it to the man’ was really powerful to me. People ask me ‘who’s the man?’ But take aging — people were telling me that I was too old to accomplish something like that. Or people would say my life was too busy, or a mother can’t put in the time to do something like that. So, again, I feel like I was trying to show what we are all capable of, and running for a collective ‘we’ gave me a lot of strength.
And I have this toolbox of failures and lessons learned, and I pulled out all the tools. It was through a series of failed races, coming up short, not doing my best, that I learned how to do my best on that day.
Sometimes the fear of failure can prevent us from starting. But I think that we need to accept that a lot of times we’re going to come up short. We can learn our lessons, we can grow, we can get better, and then go out there and be an upgraded version of ourselves. In running, as in life, a lot of races that we do are sub-par performances. … Something that I talk a lot about is, it’s not win or lose, but win or learn. People who are really successful have a lot of failures along the way that maybe you don’t see, but it’s part of the process; it’s part of how we learn and grow.
DN: In the book, you share an encouraging text you got from Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the gold medal for the marathon at the 1984 summer Olympics. What other advice have you been given, either by runners or non-runners, that has made a difference in your life and career?
KD: During the race when I was breaking the American record, my pacer said, ‘This is what it feels like.’ It was very powerful because he was saying, no American woman has ever done this before — it’s going to feel hard, it’s going to feel tough, but you’re doing it, and this is what it feels like on the way to that goal. And I feel that a lot in life. Sometimes you go through hard things, and you go, yeah, this is what it feels like to grow and to improve.
DN: You mentioned Deena Kastor’s memoir. What other running books have you read that have been helpful to you?
KD: I loved Deena’s, which was “Let Your Mind Run.” Lauren Fleshman’s “Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World.” And Meb Keflezighi’s books, especially “26 Marathons.” I think I’ve read all the running books. I’m a big reader. I listen to audiobooks while I run.
DN: What does the future look like for you? Do you intend to stay in Utah, or is this temporary while you’re training?
KD: We don’t have any plans to move from Utah. I feel centered here in a way that I’ve never felt before. Just with the community, and the people and the mountains and everything to do outside — we’re really loving the Utah area.
On Sept. 14, I’m racing the Copenhagen Half Marathon in Denmark. So I’ll leave next week for that, and I’ll do a fall marathon a bit later and see if I can run my fastest time ever, that would be pretty cool.
With running, I really want to see if I can run my best times ever now. I just turned 40, so I’m a master now, and I want to continue to move the bar forward for older runners and people who have been told you have to slow down in your 40s. And yeah, maybe the times will slow down a little bit, but I think there’s a way to find our best in this decade, so I want to show everyone what’s possible. Personally, I just want to be an awesome mom. I’m so excited to watch my kids grow and develop as people. That’s my top priority: being the best mom to Thomas and Quin.
DN: Do you run with your kids? And how do you encourage them to be active without pushing them too hard?
KD: They sometimes ride their bikes while I run. But I think for them, one of the biggest lessons I want to teach them is to have the courage to try something new. For example, my daughter just started playing lacrosse, and I think it takes a lot of courage for kids to try new things. At dinner we have a rule that’s called the “No thank you bite.” If you don’t like what I’ve put on the plate, you have to take at least one bite and then you can say “no, thank you.” And that’s how I feel about activities, too.
I played every sport I could growing up, and my son, when he was 4 or 5, said, ‘Hey, Mom, I’m not into team sports.” So he just needs to find his thing — he’s really into chess, he’s really into bike riding, he’s playing tennis, so he’s doing other activities. If he wants to be a drama kid, then I’ll be a drama mom. Most of the time I’m doing the best I can, but I’m not writing a book on parenting, let’s put it that way.
DN: What’s the No. 1 thing that you want people to take away from your book?
KD: For me, my book is not a book about running. In the same way that you watch “Ted Lasso” but you don’t have to be a soccer fan, I’m hoping people who aren’t necessarily runners — you know, the runners who haven’t run yet — I hope they can read it and apply some of what I’ve learned through running to whatever their passion is. It’s a book about chasing happiness and finding the happiest version of myself through setting big goals and working hard and going through a grind. So I hope it will help people be a happier version of themselves.
