Emma Coburn is in rarefied air—and not just in running.
The defending world champion in the 3,000-meter steeplechase is spending much of her summer at her parents’ house in Crested Butte, Colorado, at 9,000 feet of elevation. It’s the town where she grew up and where her folks recently renovated a 6,600-square-foot home.
Her mother, Ann, often cooks for her and her training partners. (Coburn details the chicken piccata, kale salads, and caramelized pears on Instagram.) Her dad, Bill, brings her water on runs.
And her husband, Joe Bosshard, who is also her coach, plans the training and racing and oversees the workouts. He’s the head of a growing training group that now includes, in addition to Coburn, seven others—four women and three men.
Coburn will run intervals at a track in Gunnison, 20 minutes from Crested Butte, at about 7,700 feet. But the bulk of the 80 to 90 miles per week she puts in, even during the heart of track season, is at higher altitude.
The combination of family care and thin air suits her. “Being here and staying with them is super easy for me,” she said.
High in the mountains, she can focus on her grueling training, taking care of her body, and her goals, which she listed in a July 18 conversation with Runner’s World: winning a medal at the IAAF World Championships in September in Doha, Qatar; making the 2020 Olympics and winning a medal there; and regaining the American steeplechase record.
Coburn held the record from May 2016 until last July, when Courtney Frerichs set the current mark, 9:00.25, in Monaco, interrupting Coburn’s stretch of American dominance.
Because she’s the defending world champion in the steeplechase (Frerichs won silver at that 2017 race in London), Coburn has automatic entry into the event at worlds this September. But she never considered not competing—and racing hard—at the USATF outdoor championships, which begin Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa. The first round of the women’s steeple begins on Friday at 4:57 p.m. eastern; the final is Sunday at 6:09 p.m.
“I’m taking it as seriously as I have in any other year,” she said. “Having the bye is very valuable if facing an injury or illness or setback. And of course at U.S. championships, if something bad were to happen in the race, it’s great to have that bye, but for me it was more of a security net than just a free pass. I always have intentions of racing U.S. championships as hard as I could.”
She has won the last five outdoor titles, but Frerichs will be there to push her, as will Colleen Quigley. In recent years, the three of them have been far ahead of the rest of the pack of American steeplers. Coburn (7) and Frerichs (3) hold all of the top 10 American times ever run.
Watch: The Coburn-Frerichs-Quigley steeplechase matchup will be just one of the marquee events at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Championships.
“Courtney is a really excellent steeplechaser, and she and I get along really well,” Coburn said. “We do have a camaraderie, the American steeple women. It’s been really fun to have these big goals together and to reach for things together and reach for global medals together. Yeah, I hope I can get the American record back. But Courtney earned it last year and hopefully I can earn it back at another race. She raced perfectly in Monaco last year when she ran 9 minutes. So I can’t take anything away from her. She earned that one.”
Coburn has shown she’s in excellent form already this season. At the Prefontaine Classic in June at Stanford University, she ran 9:04.90. That race was the second-fastest of her life—even though she fell on a barrier along the backstretch. She called it a “mindless error” as she was focused on the woman ahead of her, and said it didn’t cost her much time. (The fall is visible in the background of the clip below.)
“The steeple will always have some drama and have some crazy takeaways from every race,” she said. “I’m pretty immune to it at this point. I’ve been racing it for so many years now, I’ve come to expect something crazy.”
Coburn has been racing internationally since 2011, and she has the 2016 Olympic bronze to go along with her worlds gold. She’s still only 28—at the peak of her racing years.
Each season, Bosshard makes small tweaks to her training: The workouts are a little bit harder, the runs a little longer, the lifts in the weight room a little heavier. “Nothing changes night and day, just trying to get better a little bit every year,” Coburn said.
Bosshard frequently makes the four-hour drive between Boulder and Crested Butte. Not all of Coburn’s teammates thrive at the super high altitude that she does. Last week he paced her through some intervals on the track, then got up the next morning at 4 a.m. and drove to Boulder to be there for the workout of Kaela Edwards, who runs the 800 meters, and Cory McGee, who runs the 1500, and will also be competing at USAs. Then he flew to Europe to watch Aisha Praught-Leer, who races for Jamaica, in a 1500, and Dominque Scott-Efurd, of South Africa, run a 5,000.
Then it was back to Colorado for a few more workouts before they’ll descend to sea level in Des Moines for USAs.
For Coburn and Bosshard, it’s total immersion in running life, while she’s at the pinnacle of the sport. They never feel the need to make a conscious effort to turn off the track talk.
“It’s our job and it’s beyond our job; it’s our love and our favorite hobby all wrapped up into one,” she said. “There’s not a time where we say, ‘Okay, it’s six o’clock, we’re no longer talking about running.’ But it’s a very easy balance.
“Our whole life revolves around running, our lifestyle revolves around running, the people we surround ourselves with in our day-to-day schedule and timing and everything is about running,” she continued. “We don’t escape that. But it works really well for us. It’s not all-consuming in a negative way. It’s just our life and we love it.”
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!
