ATHLETE FEATURE

MADIE BOREMAN - DEFINED BY RESILIENCE

Where It Started

Madie is a competitor to her core. From the early days of her career, she always thrived under pressure to deliver results when it counted most. She won every single district, area, and regional championship in both the 1600m and 3200m events during her high school career - a total of 20 titles - and became a 4x state medalist in the 3200m, including winning the title as a freshman.

Madie credits her high school running experience for teaching her to handle the pressures that comes with racing at a high level. Her impressive accolades earned her a spot at the University of Colorado, where she brought her talents and relentless drive to compete against the nation’s best in the NCAA.

Rising To The Challenge

Madie made an immediate impact at CU, but not how she might’ve expected to. Instead of focusing on the main distance events - the mile, 3k, 5k - Madie’s coach spotted her potential in the steeplechase. His prediction couldn’t have been more accurate. Madie was a natural steeplechaser and put together a fantastic freshman campaign, winning the PAC-12 Conference Championships and taking home an NCAA runner-up finish in the 3K steeplechase while also setting the American Junior record in the event. Madie never could’ve predicted to find such success right away. She said that even making it to nationals that year was a surprise for her - let alone finishing 2nd in the country. Madie’s natural competitive instincts fueled her early collegiate success, but it was the resilience she built through setbacks and injuries that ultimately defined her career. It would be a couple years before she returned to the steeplechase - but when she did, she came back stronger than ever.

Learning To Overcome

After such a successful freshman season, the next year couldn’t have been more of the opposite story. While she helped Colorado achieve an impressive 3rd place finish at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in the fall, the momentum came to a halt when she suffered her first major injury in the spring - one that kept her sidelined for 6 months. Over the next few years, Madie became battle tested through adversity - more injuries that disrupted her 2018 and 2019 seasons, and the 2020 pandemic that came with its own set to challenges. Through it all, Madie stayed committed to overcoming.

In 2021, she started to regain her rhythm. She competed at the NCAA Cross Country Championships for the third time and made her return to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the steeplechase. Though she didn’t make the final that year, qualifying marked a major step forward. That summer, she capped off the season by competing at her first U.S. Olympic Trials.

As a senior, Madie added another NCAA XC Championship appearance with her team, placed 8th in the mile at the NCAA Indoors, reclaimed her PAC-12 Steeplechase title, and finished 4th at NCAAs in the steeplechase. She closed out her season at the USA Championships with a 9th place finish.

It takes a special kind of athlete to come back stronger from adversity in the way that Madie did. Through the difficult journey, Madie gained a new perspective on the power of self-belief that would shape her career moving forward.

More To Give

If you had asked Madie at the start of her final year at Colorado about her post-grad plans, professional running wouldn’t have been on the list. At that time, she was applying to law school and unsure on how she felt about running in her life. But then, her 2022 season changed everything.

Regaining form and confidence after years of setbacks reminded Madie she still had more to give. She postponed her law school plans and committed to a pro running career.

In 2023, Madie signed with Oiselle and kicked off her debut professional season. She ran a personal best of 9:22.99 in the steeplechase—meeting the World Standard—finished 11th at the USA Championships, and set the American Record in the 2K steeplechase.

That American Record is another example of Madie’s resilience and grit. When USAs didn’t go as well as she hoped, she reset and rebounded to make history.

What’s Next

While the past two years have continued to test Madie’s resilience, she’s never wavered in her self-belief. Even when plans fall short or setbacks arise, Madie stays driven by the curiosity of what’s possible - the same quality that has been present in her from the start.

MADIE’S TRAINING TIP

The Value Of Visualization

Visualize! Visualize! Visualize! I think it’s productive to treat big workouts like race days and really visualize yourself in a race during reps. This helps me simulate race day and take ~some~ of the edge off.

WORKOUT OF THE WEEK

Madie’s Workout For The Mile

This workout will help you practice running race pace for the mile. Warmup by jogging easy for 15 minutes, then do stretches, drills, and some fast strides before starting the reps. During the workout, practice feeling smooth and controlled while running fast. If you’ve been doing mostly strength-based workouts (tempos/threshold), this is a great session to help you sharpen up for the mile!

Workout: 3/2/1s; 5 sets of 300, 200, 100 at race pace (or slightly faster) with 200 recovery between each rep, 400 recovery between sets