Gracie Hunt: Chiefs Heiress. Beauty Queen. And Now We Find Out, World Class Marathon Runner
Just when you were convinced it wasn't possible for any one human to have it all, along comes Gracie Hunt to prove you wrong.
For most people, simply being born into a family whose patriarch was one of the great sports pioneers of all time, helping to found the American Football League, usher it into the NFL, create the Super Bowl, and make professional football the dominant part of American culture would be enough.
Now add the fact that she's left her own mark on the world, developed her beauty, talent, poise, and ability to walk around on a stage, to the point she could impress judges evaluating young women and win pageants, and almost anyone in the world would consider that enough winning for one life.
But for Gracie, it was not enough. She was far from done achieving things wanted more. And went right out and got it.
The New York Post did a profile on Gracie upon her arrival in Las Vegas to see her family's business compete in the Super Bowl. In it, she speaks of her own athletic career as a college soccer player, which was cut short by four concussions. Then discussed how she recently took up marathoning. Then oddly enough, after about eight hours, The Post "updated" the piece, removing some key details. Here's how it reads now:
Although the Special Olympics ambassador has moved on from pageants, she’s now satisfying her competitive appetite with marathon running after taking part in her first race “very spontaneously” this past July.
Now set to run in the Boston Marathon this April, Hunt is adapting to a new style of training, one that differs from her soccer days and pageant preparation.
But if the published reports quoting this article are accurate, this little chestnut was in the original:
“I signed up for my first marathon about 13 hours before the race started,” said Hunt, who had stumbled upon a sign for the event after hiking with her mom.
“I had never run in a registered race before this point and had never run more than 13 miles consecutively, and that was on treadmill several years before… [I] took a chance, registered at about 5 p.m. that evening, and ran it at 6 a.m. the next day, and finished it in three hours and 45 minutes, and that is what started my marathon career.”
Assuming that's how it read when it was first published, why make the edit? What, where people claiming Gracie Hunt couldn't run 26.2 miles in 3:45 minutes on her first try after signing up 13 hours before the start of the race? Without training. Without preparation. Without stretching out her top distances over the course of weeks and months as the date approached. Without changing her diet. Why would anybody doubt it?
According to Asics, here's the breakdown of average marathon times, by percentage:
See? So about one women in five can run one in under four hours. Presumably after undergoing a lengthy, rigorous fitness regimen of distance running and nutrition. And it would take the worst kind of cynic to assume an accomplished, multi-talented physical specimen like Gracie couldn't beat that time by 15 minutes on her first try, just by showing up.
Some people are just like that. They have that winning gene in their DNA. They were born to achieve, even at things they just took up spontaneously, on a moment's notice. Which all you losers at the Boston Marathon will soon find out for yourselves. You'll spend the three months between now and Patriots Day living a life of abstinence and self-denial. Getting up in the predawn hours to run through the cold, the wind, the rain. Slowly increasing your distances until you're in peak condition as you cross that starting line in Hopkintion. Only to have a millionairess former Miss Kansas blow by you like you were standing still. And don't bet against her winning the whole thing.
Gracie Hunt: All-American winning machine.
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