Interview with Cheri Blauwet

By Pat Goodwin

Wheelchair racer Cheri Blauwet made her international debut in 2000 when she won a silver medal and three bronze medals on the track at the Paralympic Games in Sydney. Blauwet won the ING New York City Marathon in 2002 and 2003; the City of Los Angeles Marathon in 2003, 2004, and 2005; and the Boston Marathon in 2004 and 2005.

In 2004, she returned to the Paralympic Games, this time in Athens, and won a gold medal in the 800 meters and bronze medals in the 5000 meters and the marathon. After racing one last big marathon in New York in 2005, Blauwet took a temporary retirement. The reason? She wanted to focus on her studies at Stanford University, where she is in medical school.

But 2007 saw her return to the track, setting personal bests in the 400 (57.62), 800 (1:50.08), and 1500 (3:26.46) in Atlanta in June. She has an aggressive schedule of marathons planned starting with New York on November 4 and followed by Los Angeles in March, Boston in April, and the Paralympic Games in Beijing in September.

Blauwet grew up on a farm outside of Larchwood, Iowa, a small town of just over 700 people located in the upper northwest corner of the state about 20 minutes from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Before the age of 2, she sustained a spinal cord injury in a farming accident. Blauwet learned to see disability as another way of living. Her family regularly drove her to Courage Center in Minneapolis where she spent summers at Camp Courage from seventh grade on, trying out wheelchair basketball and track. By her sophomore year in high school she started to focus on the track, then went off to the University of Arizona where she started competing in 5000 and 10,000 meters  and her first marathon. Academically, she was a Rhodes Scholar finalist.

Blauwet, 27, lives in Palo Alto and is a fifth-year medical student at Stanford. Her coach is Mike Smartt. She has a best time in the marathon of 1:39:53, which she set at Boston in 2004.

Fast-women: Two weeks out from the ING New York City Marathon you were doing quite a bit of traveling. Most people getting ready for a marathon are tapering and resting. What have you been doing on the road?
Cheri Blauwet: From October 19 to 21, I was in San Francisco, not too far from home, for the Nike Women’s Marathon, which is in its fourth year and is the largest women’s marathon in the world with 20,000 participants. Nike brought in a number of its athletes to be involved in the expo. We worked a lot at the expo telling people how we became athletes and how we felt it was important to identify as an athlete and as a woman. It was called an Expotique and I got to meet all sorts of people including Joan Benoit Samuelson—I spent a lot of time with her.

FW: After San Francisco where did you go?
CB: I went to Colorado Springs to check out the Olympic Training Center. I’m interested in the residency training program in Colorado Springs and went there to scope it out. I’m thinking of doing some training there at altitude in March before I do the Boston Marathon and then in July and August before the Paralympic Games. I also went down to Chula Vista but I wasn’t able to stay very long because we had to evacuate due to the fires. I’ll be talking with my coach to decide whether I should be in Colorado Springs or Chula Vista this spring and summer.

FW: When did you sign on with Nike?
CB: I signed on with Nike last February. They were looking to take on some new athletes in the Paralympics realm. They really do believe that athletes come in all shapes and sizes and they really support women.

FW: How did you get started doing track and what was your first marathon?
CB: I started doing track while I was still in high school. In Iowa there were track and field exhibitions for wheelchair athletes. I did the 100 and 400 meters. As you get older you start to do longer distances. At the University of Arizona I started doing 5K and 10K and moved up to the marathon while I was still in college. New York was my first marathon, in 2002. This will be the fourth time I have raced at New York.

FW: What do you like about the ING New York City Marathon?
CB: It is a special place and New York is my favorite marathon overall. I love the excitement and energy of the race. I love New York in general and the people that it brings together. The event reflects what both the city and the race is – every ethnicity, all shapes and sizes, all coming together to do this one athletic event. New York brings together the power of the sport. You go through all the boroughs and you see the cross-section of the city.

FW: You are moving pretty fast. Do you have time to look around? What do you think of the event?
CB: Every once in awhile I peak up to look around. It is a tough course so it is not as fast a course as some others are. But the race is so great for the wheelchair community. The race officials understand equity within sport and include international wheelchair racers. They do a great job of making it fully inclusive for us. You are recognized as an athlete. You are pushing the envelope and you are up there on the podium with all the other athletes.

FW: Is this different from other marathons?
CB: New York does a good job putting on the event and treating you well. Boston does a great job as well, but New York provides more support for travel and funding which means more competitors can make the trek. I plan to do Boston in mid-April because it is such an awesome race. It’s a race that pushes your athletic career forward. On the whole, our event is shorter than running a marathon so we can do more marathons in the course of a year.

FW: Is there anything special for wheelchair racers at New York this year?
CB: They are bringing back all the women who have won the race before plus the field includes the best women in the world, so it is going to be tough. There will be 10 to 15 female wheelchair athletes in this race.

FW: How has your training been going?
CB: My training has been going quite well. I made sure I had a couple of easier rotations in medical school this fall so I had time before the marathon to do the training. My temporary retirement began after New York in 2005. I didn’t compete at all in 2006 so it just takes time to build your body back up to an elite performance level. Once you are out of shape, you have a new appreciation for what “in shape” means. You begin to realize how different that is.

FW: Did you have a timetable for when you would come back from your ‘retirement?’
CB: In my mind I knew I would be back, but I didn’t know exactly when. It depended on what my school schedule was along with when the Paralympic Games would be held in Beijing. I would go cycling and try to stay active but I was just too busy for awhile there to train at a high level. There are just so many hours in a day. I didn’t want to get frustrated with not being able to be competitive. I was pretty focused on being in medical school during 2006.

FW: Your competition schedule looks pretty busy over the next year. How many marathons will you be doing?
CB: New York will be the first of four marathons concluding with the Paralympics in Beijing. After New York, I will do Los Angeles, which is the Paralympics Trials marathon, then Boston and then Beijing. It’s a little bit of speculation that I will be on the team for the marathon since I still need to do LA, where they select the top two. But if you don’t have a good day at LA, you can actually still get on the team on the basis of your track placement. My plan is to focus on the marathon and I can qualify for it on the track in the 5000 meters if I need to.

FW: When and where will the Paralympic Track Trials be held?
CB: I don’t know where the track trials are yet. Wheelchair racers want a hard track and runners want a soft track. It won’t be in Eugene. They are looking at holding our trials in Sacramento or maybe San Diego. Getting us a date depends on finding a location. Most likely, our trials will be held the first two weeks in June.

FW: How much time do you spend training leading up to a marathon and do you have training partners?
CB: For pushing, a heavy week is about 15 hours of training. I do two or three hard workouts in a row and then I have an active recovery day – which is a day off – and on that day I do a short handcycle workout. I have a couple of training partners, but I do a lot of training by myself because it’s hard to coordinate our schedules.

FW: Why did you decide to return to competition now and how long will you continue to compete?
CB: The Paralympics in 2008 will be my last. I am ready to move on to some new challenges and adventures in life. But one of my considerations in coming back to compete this year and next was because my perspective has changed since I started competing. When you get into your 20s, you begin to ask what are my motives for doing this and what does it mean to me in the bigger picture. Sometimes it can be very selfish during the time preceding the race and to win. You are very self-focused and at some point you want to start giving back.

FW: You’ve mentioned having a platform with your athletic accomplishments. What do you mean by that?
CB: I do understand the power the platform of being an athlete gives me and to win a race. People listen to you and you have a voice. That is a neat part of it. What I would like to do this time around is to continue to compete in the name of people who are just as talented but because of their circumstances they don’t have the ability to be an athlete. Disability is still seen as a stigma and is discriminated against in many parts of the world. Life is over for many of these people once they have a disability. All the more impressive are those who rise up and become athletes in the face of discrimination. Those are the people who deserve our admiration and respect. I had a lot of supportive people behind me and that is why I succeeded. Disabled people are a minority group that is one of the largest and most misunderstood.

FW: When will you graduate from medical school?
CB: My plan is to stick around and graduate in 2009 to maintain my student status. My focus in 2008 is the Paralympics. I plan to continue to promote my stance on health and human rights from the platform I’ve been given.

FW: What do you hope to accomplish as a doctor?
CB: I’m going to do a physical medicine and rehabilitation residency starting in 2009 and I’m thinking of specializing in pediatric or spinal cord rehabilitation. I’m also interested in sports medicine.

FW: Besides wheelchair racing and medical school, what else do you like to do?
CB: I just love traveling. I like to go to new and unusual places. I’ve never been to China so I am looking forward to that.

FW: Finally, when will you arrive in New York and will you watch the U.S. Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials the day before your race?
CB: I plan to arrive in New York on Thursday. I am going to try and watch the men’s trials on Saturday because I have a teammate, James Nielson, who will be competing.

Interview conducted October 26, 2007, and posted October 30, 2007.