Dan's Papers - January 18, 2008

Just driving 26 miles is a long distance, forget about running it. But that's exactly what Janelle Kraus of Shelter Island does, and she does it very, very well. She is one of the top runners in the world and we are happy to have her displaying resilience and strength as she battles mile after mile, checking her pace, training endlessly and battling fatigue. She has gone from being an accomplished collegiate athlete to ranking as one of the fastest female long distance runners in the world. "I go on really long runs, about 89 miles a week," said Kraus.

Put simply, she consistently wins running races. From five kilometers to full marathons, Kraus travels all over the country to compete, including Texas, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and there is almost never a race that she doesn't win. Her talent for running blossomed while attending Wake Forest University, where she was a four-time All-American and quickly became a member of the Boston Athletic Association. In 2006, she qualified for the Olympic trials after placing fourth in the B.A.A. Half Marathon.

After she qualified, her running catapulted her to a whole new level and she placed 13th overall last April and sixth among women in arguably the most grueling athletic event on the planet - the Boston Marathon. The most talked-about stretch of this race is Heartbreak Hill, which gets its name for knocking out countless runners over the years and sending them to a fluids IV and a recovery room. The four-mile-long hill appears at mile seventeen of the Marathon and forces athletes to run uphill for a seemingly endless amount of time at the very last leg of the race. But this was just another day at work for Kraus, who has mastered this distance and had her eye on taking her running career even further.

Spending her working days training college athletes at SUNY Stony Brook, her down time is spent training herself to represent America in the Olympics. After displaying her talent for running, she is now recognized as one of America's best and will compete at the U.S. Women's Olympic Marathon trials in April along with 150 other handpicked competitors who are literally the best of the best in this sport, and there is nothing on which she is more focused.

The Olympic Trials are not only a major honor, but they also bring an athlete one step closer to being the best in the world. And with the summer Olympics scheduled for this year in Beijing, China, these trials are her shot at one amazing life experience.

"I'm going in better shape than I've ever been before," she said. "I'm hoping to have a very good day."

What makes her story so inspiring is just how difficult it is to get as far as she has. If there is one truth about running, it is that you can't rely on anything else except for hard work and determination. That's it. Not only do runners face competitors, but there is also the most challenging competitor of all that you have to face - yourself. You can't quit, you can't relax, you can't stop training.

Between now and April you just might see Kraus running along the streets of Shelter Island, where she grew up. "I run whenever I visit home. It's one of the most beautiful places to run," she said. You have to keep your eye out for her, though, because if you blink she'll run by in a flash.