Princeton University Athletics
Alum Catha Mullen '07 Featured in Princeton Packet
January 20, 2012 | Women's Cross Country, Women's Track and Field
Mullen Endures Tribulation at Trials
Justin Feil, Princeton Packet (1/20/12)
Less than five years later, Mullen was on the starting line for the 2012 Marathon Olympic Trials, a distance she'd never considered while setting the 5,000 meter outdoor track and field school record and garnering All-America honors with the Tiger women's team.
"Absolutely not," Mullen said. "The marathon literally never crossed my mind. It was not until I joined the New York Athletic Club that it crossed my mind. The marathon is a key focus of the running club. I totally got the bug and I decided to go for it."
Mullen had a charmed go at the distance, and qualified for the Olympic Trials by beating the 2-hour, 46-minute standard at the 2010 Boston Marathon when she ran a new personal best 2:40:16. It was her third marathon and third time she'd lowered her marathon time.
"When you exceed your expectations in a race or run well, you tend to look back with a selective memory and tend to think it's easy,” Mullen said. "The races where you don't meet your expectations tend to seem tough in retrospect."