Jones Returns In Full Bloom Normally Worn Down This Time Of Year, Refreshed Spokane Runner Set For Sunday

Kim Jones found inspiration in the gutter.

She had just met a goal that had been difficult to even imagine: she had run the Bloomsday course.

“My goal was just to finish,” Jones recalls of her road-racing debut in 1982. “I was so sore I could barely walk and I was sitting on a curb - although Anne Audain said I was in the gutter. She came up to me and asked how I did, and I was bragging that I had finished the race without even training for it.

“I didn’t know who she was and I asked her how she did,” Jones said. “She told me she won it and I was so embarrassed. She told me if I trained a few months before next year’s race I wouldn’t be so sore and I’d have a better time.”

The advice started Jones on a path of many miles and races - a path that has circled back to the same spot.

Jones may now be on the verge of her best Bloomsday.

What forces of fate led Audain, a seven-time champion, to encourage the gasping woman on the curb?

“It was probably because I looked so pathetic,” Jones said with a giggle.

Jones, now 36, developed into the third-fastest American woman marathoner of all time.

And although she has a pair of eighth-place finishes on her resume, she has never really challenged for the title in her hometown race.

Usually, she’s worn down from competing in the Boston Marathon, with less than two week’s recovery time before Bloomsday.

Last year, she had her number and was ready to run, but realized how worn down she was from her Boston experience and decided to turn and run away from the field and go for a 10-mile jog at a workout pace down the Centennial Trail instead.

This year, though, Jones raced in the London Marathon (finishing sixth) instead of Boston, leaving more time to target Bloomsday.

“I’m definitely fresher and not as tired as I normally am this time of year,” Jones said. “My goal for Bloomsday this year is to place higher than I’ve ever placed and run my fastest time ever. I’d be happy with a top-five finish.”

Her personal best for the 12-kilometer race is 41 minutes, 51 seconds in 1984. Sunday’s winner will probably run 3 minutes quicker than that time.

“My judgment is that this is probably the best opportunity she’s had (to contend for a title) because she’s in great shape and is about as well-rested as she could be,” said Don Kardong, race organizer and longtime friend of Jones’.

Jones, who will represent the U.S. at the World Championships in Sweden in August, has had a remarkable career (secondplace finishes twice at Boston and New York) despite a quirky series of injuries and illnesses.

An asthma-allergy condition has been the most problematic recently, but should not be a factor this weekend.

A shot from an inhaler before the race “can pretty much protect me for 40 minutes,” she said. “I could go out and run a 4:40 mile pretty much any given day, but what happens is if I go right at my threshold and have to shift gears and go faster, I get warning signs that I’m not getting the oxygen I need and I have to back off.”

The tactic this year, then, is to “get into the race at my own pace early and not have to sprint,” she said.

This year’s move to start the elite women 15 minutes before the men’s race should help Jones.

“You’ll be able to see your competitors instead of having to search for them through the crowd,” Jones said. “I think it will be a more tactical race because we don’t have the men to shelter us.”

“Relative to Kim, (the new starting system) could really help,” Kardong said. “For a variety of reasons, she seems to do better starting a little easier and then picking people off. In past years, that’s more difficult because they’re mixed in with the men. I think it’s going to make the possibility for someone to come from behind a lot better.”

The field this time, Jones said, features a very solid top 10. “The Kenyans are always very, very tough, and it seems like they’re on top this year with the Mexicans challenging them,” Jones said. “The Kenyan women are like the Kenyan men in that they go out very hard.”

Another marquee name in the field is Olga Markova of St. Petersburg, Russia, a two-time Boston Marathon winner whom Jones has competed against countless times.

This will be different, though, because it’s on Jones’ home turf, in a race that is important to her.

After all, it’s the race that started her career.

And got her out of the gutter.