Keira D’Amato, a former U.S. record-holder in the half marathon and marathon, has parted ways with her longtime coach, Scott Raczko, and has joined Ed Eyestone’s pro training group in Provo, Utah.
D’Amato has moved with her family to Utah for the summer. She’ll stay there through her yet-to-be-announced fall marathon, while her husband, Anthony D’Amato, and their two children, who are entering third and fourth grades, will return to their home in Richmond, Virginia, in August for the start of the school year.
The Olympic Marathon Trials in February were the major focus of the year for D’Amato. She went in as a prerace favorite and ended up dropping out at mile 20. She felt she wasn’t prepared for the heat in Orlando, and she said after that race that she was wondering if she was missing things in her training.
D’Amato, who will turn 40 in October, wanted to experience a new stimulus by training at altitude. Provo sits at 4,500 feet of elevation, and the group often trains in nearby Park City, at 7,000 feet.
She also wanted a “different perspective” on her training and a chance to “learn from someone new,” she told Runner’s World on July 10. She also is looking forward to having a team structure in place and other pros to train with, although she is the only woman training under Eyestone for now. Already she has heard from Olympians Karissa Schweizer and Courtney Wayment about going for runs, and college and pro coach Diljeet Taylor has invited D’Amato and her family for dinner.
Eyestone, who is the head track and field coach at Brigham Young University, is one of two distance coaches with four American Olympians in Paris. Mike Smith, the head coach at Northern Arizona University, is the other.
Under Eyestone, marathoners Conner Mantz and Clayton Young finished first and second at the Trials in Orlando. Steeplechaser Kenneth Rooks won that event at the U.S. track trials, and James Corrigan finished third, although Corrigan did not have the Olympic qualifying standard or enough points to qualify by world ranking. Eyestone helped set up another race for him in Philadelphia, and Corrigan hit the Olympic standard there.
Eyestone and Smith successfully run top college programs and groups of elite athletes who train nearby.
D’Amato told Runner’s World that she had gotten to know Eyestone as both worked on the Chicago Marathon broadcast the last two years. They also interacted at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last summer. D’Amato finished 17th at the marathon there.
Raczko guided D’Amato through the track trials in Eugene, Oregon, where D’Amato ran the 10,000 meters and finished 10th in 32:25. She has said she’ll focus on the roads going forward.
At age 39, D’Amato has a sense that her time in the sport has a limit—but it might not come for a while.
“I feel like I know this isn’t going to last forever,” she said. “But I don’t think I’m anywhere close to the end of my best ever. I still believe I can run my best ever marathon and half marathon and 10K. I think my best times are still ahead of me.”
She also believes that, despite the long careers of athletes like Sara Hall (41) and Des Linden (40), there haven’t been many athletes who have continued on at the highest levels into their 40s. “I feel like we’re still as a running community learning a lot about what you can do as you age,” she said. “And I think the more people push it like this, the more it’s going to seem like the norm to have a career into your 40s.”
In 2022, under Rackzo, D’Amato won the Houston Marathon in 2:19:12, breaking the American record that had stood for 16 years. In 2023, she set the American half marathon record, 1:06:39. Both marks have since been broken, but D’Amato still is the second-fastest American ever at both events.
She is full of praise for Rackzo’s guidance and friendship.
“I am so appreciative of the relationship that Scott and I have and will continue to have,” she said. “He and I have done some amazing things together, and I’m so grateful for everything he has given and taught me.”
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005. She is the author of two popular fitness books, Run Your Butt Off! and Walk Your Butt Off!
