Catherine Ndereba, 35, is one of the best female marathoners in history. A former world record-holder at the distance (2:18:47 at the 2001 La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon), Ndereba won the Olympic silver medal at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. In addition to these Herculean feats, she is a four-time winner of the Boston Marathon (the first and only woman to hold this distinction) and a two-time winner of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon (2000 and 2001). She is remarkably consistent, having run 12 sub-2:26 performances and three sub-2:20s in her career. Runner’s World ranked her the #1 Runner of the Year for five years.

“I started running when I was in 5th grade.  Not until I finished high school did I get a coach and found that I had a lot of potential. 

The Olympic Championships....are the most important, because they only come after every 4 years, it’s not like the world championships and once you win a medal in the Olympics it seems like people keep remembering. It’s not like any other Championships.  When I got to the Olympics for sure I wasn’t 100 percent.  Once we started the race I just took it very easy hoping that my body would keep on catching up and loosening up.  So once I started seeing people breaking from 25th kilometer I got kind of scared,  but I said well I am sure that God is with me and He is going to carry me, when my legs will not carry me, He is able to carry me.

When I run I normally feel great and remember how God has blessed me so much.  he gives me the talent of which He doesn’t charge me anything, you know,  it is just a free-will gift you know?  And I can just use it the way I want just for His glory.

My biggest disappointment in my running career is when I didn’t make the team for the Olympics year 2000.  I did cope with that disappointment... It was so painful but all I said was if this is not God’s will for me to be there, well I just wait and  ask God to give me the grace and the patience to just wait upon Him because when it comes and it is His time, I am sure everything will work so well.
What I know is that I never wrestle with God. Because I know, very well, that my running is a gift from God. He gave it to me with a purpose. He gave it do me so that I can go inside Him with it. Whenever I run and win, it is not me who is winning, it is the Christ in me because there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that I’m able to do without Him. I get that from the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 13, that says that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And in the book of Deuteronomy where it says that the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. So I believe in God, in He who has saved us. He is very faithful to keep his word and the Bible tells me that.”
“Jesus died because of my sins, because He loves me so much and He wouldn’t like me to die or have eternal destruction so that is why He offered Jesus to die on the cross on my behalf, so that I may live with Him.”