All of this makes D’Amato’s debut far from typical. But her running career hasn’t exactly followed its usual path either, so it’s actually quite fitting.
For one, she signed her first professional running contract with Nike at age 36. Elite is an age almost unheard of in her sport. D’Amato also has a day job and soon he will have two. She works as a real estate agent at her mother’s real estate brokerage in Fairfax, Virginia. Opened an orchid specialty store Join her two children, Tommy, 8, and Quinn, 5, in nearby Midlothian, and it’s organized chaos. But D’Amato says he wouldn’t do Chapter 2 any other way.
“Round 2” of running
D’Amato is now a marathon star, running outstandingly in her teens and early twenties.
After graduating from American University in 2006, D’Amato (née Carlstrom) briefly joined a professional training group in Washington, DC. With surgery not covered by her insurance, she figured it might be all she had to give her leg.She retired from sports, got married, had two kids, worked I got
But less than a decade later, she wanted to run again, and a running resurgence began in 2016. She then joined her Shamrock Marathon in 2017 with her husband Anthony D’Amato. D’Amato was ahead of schedule with her finishing in 3:14, but still 12 minutes behind Anthony. (“This was the last time I won her in her race,” he said. runner’s world later. )
This race inspired her competitive spirit. Eight months later, at her 2017 Richmond marathon in Virginia, she cut her marathon time by 27 minutes to run 2:47 and set her sights on her trials at the 2020 Olympics. was just two minutes short of her qualification. So D’Amato started training a little more purposefully. She began working with her former professional coach Scott Raczko, who led her to her 2:44 at her 2018 Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.
“I qualified for the Olympic trials for the first time, and that really set the fire,” she now says.
But D’Amato’s improvement curve was just beginning. She improved her time by 10 minutes at her marathon in Berlin the following year, clocking 2:34. Her name wasn’t on the radar of most people heading to the Olympics her marathon her trials, but she entered the race with ambitious goals. She finished in the top three and qualified for the Olympics. D’Amato finished 15th overall, which she described as a tough day, but still set her best marathon time in that race, 30 seconds off her time in Berlin. It was too late. Perhaps more importantly, her confidence continued to propel her forward, propelling her to an American record and team her USA’s World Championship appearances just two years later.
A new perspective on the road
D’Amato credits a healthy balance of running, career and family with giving her a different perspective than what she had as a young athlete.