Chatty Nevada coach Myers qualifies for Olympic Trials in marathon – Reno Gazette Journal

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As the more than 500 runners make their way to the starting line for the women’s marathon Olympic Trials race on Saturday, look for the woman chattering and talking to all her fellow competitors.

That will be Nevada graduate and assistant track and cross country coach EmKay Myers, who qualified for the Olympic trials in the marathon when she posted a time of 2 hours, 41 minutes, 16 seconds, in the Chicago Marathon last October.

Her Olympic trials marathon race begins at 9 a.m. Saturday in Atlanta and will be televised on NBC. 

To prepare herself in the moments before a race she talks to herself, constantly, and to anyone within earshot.

“I just talk to people because that’s how I get my nervous energy out. People would look at me like, ‘Are you crazy? Could you please stop talking to me, I’m trying to focus,'” Myers said, smiling.  “I know I’m prepared. I’ve done all the training. Now it’s just getting to the starting line.”

Runners will complete three loops on a street course in Atlanta. The third lap will have an added section, to make the course 26.2 miles.

The Olympic trials will be just her third marathon.

Myers qualified so long ago for the trials that she put in the back of her mind and kind of forgot about it.

Until this week.

“It feels like all of a sudden, it’s just here,” Myers said, smiling. “I was like, ‘Holy cow, we’re in marathon week.'”

She also coaches the Nevada women’s track and field team, which will be competing in the Mountain West indoor championships this weekend. So, Myers has been planning for their meet, in addition to her own.

“I qualified so long ago and I’ve been waiting for so long, I’m like, ‘yeah, I did that,'” Myers said Monday. “I’m just now getting really excited about it.”

She tried to get on the U.S. steeplechase team in 2016 and has been a standout athlete most of her life.

She said running marathons almost comes naturally for her, due to her training regimen.

“I’ve always been kind of a metronome when it comes to pacing, so once I got to the point where I was training at the pace that I needed to run the marathon, I knew that with the mileage, it would be relatively easy for me,” Myers said. “Maybe not easy, but I knew that I could do it, once I had enough workouts under my belt, I had no doubt that I was going to go out there and run the time.”

She left for Atlanta on Wednesday morning and will stay with relatives near there. On Thursday, she will get her uniform, which Myers is thrilled about.

“My sponsor, Tracksmith, just sent us an email with the pictures of it and they’re awesome,” Myers said. 

She is also sponsored by Altra, Spring Energy and Chorus.

Myers is from Texas and has a lot family still in Texas and Arkansas who will be making the trip Atlanta to watch her run.

She has to pay her own way there, but she has several sponsors who supply her with shoes, clothes, gear and nutrition bars.

The “B” standard to make the cut for the Olympic Trials was 2:45, which explains why the field is so large. Myers said the qualifying time likely will be lower for future marathon trials.

The “A” standard is 2:37, and only the top three men and women who beat that time will make the U.S. Olympic marathon team that will compete in Tokyo (July 24-Aug. 9) in the Summer Olympics. 

That is, assuming there is a Summer Olympics.

Myers said concerns have been raised about the coronavirus outbreak and that there have been whispers that the Summer Olympics could be in jeopardy.

The Indoor World Championships were canceled; they were supposed to be held in China.

Qualifying

She tried to hit that 2:37 time in the Chicago Marathon, and said she could have gotten it, but hit a mental wall at mile 18 and slowed her pace too much.

“I was by myself and it got really hard and I made a lot of compromises with myself and did not finish as hard as I should have,” Myers said.

Myers, 25, ran track for Nevada from 2012 to 2017. Aside from a three-month recovery period after minor ankle surgery, she has continued training ever since graduating.

She said training for a marathon is easier than training for track and field because she can motivate herself.

“The marathon is a much easier thing to train for, alone, than grinding on a track, for me at least,” Myers said. “I don’t need a coach yelling at me as much as I did on the track, I guess.”

She said running the hilly course in Atlanta should not be a problem because she often runs in the hills and trails around her home in southwest Reno.

She moved to Las Vegas for a couple years with her fiance, but when Nevada decided to bring back the men’s cross country team in summer of 2019, she jumped at the chance to coach the team.

She trains with Rick Floyd, who is a good trail runner and helps her with the elevation changes she will encounter in Atlanta.

Myers has a masters degree in public policy, with an emphasis in environmental policy, and once had a job as a green building consultant, but she quickly learned working in a corporate office setting was not for her.

“Being able to turn my passion into a career  is something not a lot of people get to do,”

 Myers said of her current job at Nevada.

Nevada cross country and track coach Kirk Elias said her love of running has gotten her to the Trials.

“She still loves her running. That is essential to staying in the game. She loves to train and loves to race,” Elias said.

Competitors in the Olympic Trials will begin the race in front of Centennial Olympic Park — the crown jewel of the 1996 Atlanta Games. The finish line is inside Centennial Olympic Park.

A male and female runner from Las Vegas also qualified for the marathon trials.

Myers’ accomplishments

• Assistant cross country coach at Nevada
• All-American in the 3,000-meter steeplechase
• Still holds four school records at Nevada
• Holds the Arkansas high school state record at 3,200 meters

Atlanta Trials course map

Jim Krajewski covers high school and youth sports for the Reno Gazette Journal. Follow him on Twitter @RGJPreps.Support his work by subscribing to RGJ.com right here. 

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