Just over one month ago Dakotah became the first minnesotan to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics after an incredible 3rd place finish with a time of 2:25:21. Although Dakotah came on the radar for many in the running community after the trials, she is no stranger to the podium. Dakotah has two Grandma’s Marathon wins to her name from 2021 and 2022, as well as placing 2nd in the 2019 Twin Cities Marathon. For those trail nerds like me, she also won the Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon an incredible three times in a row from 2014-2016
Dakotah has been focusing her efforts on her professional running career since graduating from Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 2017. She joined our local elite running team, Minnesota Distance Elite in 2017 and has been seeing consistent improvement and success ever since. She is currently the 12th fastest women’s marathoner in US history. She is also the first runner from MN to qualify for the Olympics since Kara Goucher in 2019.
On this podcast we learn more about the woman behind the headlines and dive into her experience training for and competing in the trials, how she has balanced professional running with a full time job as a paralegal, how the “underdog” mindset has served her in running, and we’ll get some pro tips for you, our listeners, about how you can improve your own running directly from MN’s current favorite runner.
