EUGENE, Oregon, (Reuters) – Even after all the pain, the surgery and the heartbreak, Mary Slaney still wants to run.
“If I could get healthy, I would get out there and see how much an almost 51-year-old body could do,” America’s greatest female middle-distance runner told Reuters in a recent interview. “But I can’t get healthy enough orthopaedically.”
A multitude of operations, more than 30 by her count, has left her unable to run competitively.
“I guess it was ‘99 I had surgeries on my legs and my feet that was supposed to help me stay healthy, help me enough to train…I was looking at starting to train for marathons,” she said. “Well, this surgery, it just destroyed what there was left.”
More recent operations have not solved the problems for the former 1,500 and 3,000 metres world champion who, as Mary Decker, became known for the on-track collision with Britain’s Zola Budd that destroyed her hopes of winning the 1984 Olympic 3,000 title.
So Slaney jogs every other day and hikes in the woods with her three Weimaraner dogs on the 55-acre property she and her husband of 24 years, former British discus thrower Richard Slaney, own outside Eugene.
“If I go out and do too much or try to go too fast, I wind up with stress fractures,” said Slaney, who set 17 official and unofficial world records.
Sewing, quilting, gardening and renovating occupy much of her time.
“What I am really, really getting into now is quilting,” said Slaney.
There is even a sewing room and a new sewing machine, a Christmas gift from Richard.
NICE LIFE
For the most part, memorabilia from her running days had been packed away, she said.
“If you walked into our house you wouldn’t think: ‘Oh, you are totally into sports’,” Slaney said. “It’s like more quilts…more normal things.”
The yearn to run remains, however.
