Zeiger Strikes Perfect Balance in Daily Life of School and Sport

Although Joanna Zeiger, the lone elite U.S. woman entered in Sunday’s L.A. Marathon, downplays her chances of becoming the first American to win since 1994, she has surprised before.

Entering the Sydney Olympics last September, Zeiger was ranked No. 38 in the world in the women’s triathlon.

She finished fourth.

“I highly doubt I’m a favorite,” Zeiger said Wednesday from San Diego during a break in training for the marathon. “But I’m really excited. It’s supposed to be a great race. Everyone I’ve talked to has nothing but good things to say.”

Bill Burke, the race’s president and co-founder, had nothing but good things to say about Zeiger.

“As the pendulum swings in athletics,” Burke said, “I think she may be the arrow tip as far as Americans entering the marathon scene on an international level. And that goes for men as well as women. I think she’s going to do very well.”

Zeiger would be ecstatic to follow in the seven-year-old footsteps of Paul Pilkington and Olga Appell, who won their respective divisions of the ’94 marathon in 2 hours 12 minutes 13 seconds and 2:28:12. It’s just that Zeiger is more focused on a strong showing this weekend to propel her into the upcoming triathlon season.

“I like to start the year with a marathon,” she said. “It gives me something to focus on during the winter months.”

She was focused last year.

Besides her near-medal performance in the Olympics, she placed fifth in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii, widely regarded as the world’s toughest endurance contest. It consists of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile marathon through the streets and jungle of Kona.

She also won the St. Croix International Triathlon, the St. Anthony’s Triathlon in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the U.S. Pro Women’s national title at the Mrs. T’s Triathlon in Chicago. She also was named the United States Olympic Committee’s Female Triathlete of the Year.

She accomplished all of this while working toward her PhD, a goal she attained in January at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Her degree is in genetic epidemiology, though you can’t help but wonder if she minored in time management.

“I’ve always been a student athlete,” Zeiger said. “I started swimming when I was 7. I’ve just always budgeted my time and I’m just unwilling to give up either one [academics or athletics].”

Zeiger, 30, was an all-Ivy League swimmer in the early 1990s at Brown University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. She qualified for the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in 1988 and ’92 before moving on to Northwestern University, where she received a master’s degree in genetic counseling in 1995.

It was at the ’92 trials that a teammate challenged her to a race to the pool, an early rendition of the triathlon, which made its Olympic debut in 2000 and is comprised of a 0.9-mile swim, a 24.8-mile bike ride and a 6.2-mile run.

When a shoulder injury cut short her competitive swimming career, she became hooked on the diverse three-sport event.

“While everybody else is sleeping, I’m out there training,” she said. “I usually do two workouts a day--one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Could be for one hour, could be for six hours. And some days, I rest and do nothing at all.”

Zeiger was far from resting when she developed the basis of her doctoral thesis--studying the role of genetics in birth defects. It came to her during a training session.

“Tons of ideas come to me then [during workouts],” she said. “I’d get frustrated just sitting in front of my computer. Running, biking, swimming . . . it’s all so freeing for my mind.”

The 5-foot-5, 115-pound Zeiger, who was born in San Diego but lives in Baltimore, is doing a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins.

With her time divided among so many arenas, it’s easy to see why she doesn’t consider herself a favorite in a field that includes Romania’s Nuta Olaru, last year’s runner-up in 2:35:14, and Russia’s Alla Zhilyayeva, who finished third in 1999 in 2:33:41.

Zeiger said that she competes primarily for fun. But she wasn’t having so much fun one lap into the third phase--the foot race--of the Olympic triathlon in Australia. Zeiger, who has asthma, dropped her inhaler pulling it out of her waist pouch and finished the race without it.

At the time, she said that the mishap didn’t affect her finish, which, at 2:01:25.74, was fewer than 17 seconds from a bronze medal and a mere 45.22 seconds behind gold medalist Brigitte McMahon of Switzerland.

But what if she drops the inhaler one mile into the marathon?

“I’ll stop and go back for it,” she said. “Twenty-six miles is a long way.”

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Marathon Facts

* What: Los Angeles Marathon XVI

* When: Sunday.

* Television: Channel 13.

* Races: Bike tour (begins 6 a.m. at USC); wheelchair race (begins 8:20 a.m. at 5th and 1Figueroa); marathon (begins 8:45 a.m. at 5th and Figueroa); 5K (begins 9:45 a.m. at Staples Center).

* Defending champions: Men, Benson Mutisya Mbithi of Kenya. Women, Jane Salumae, Estonia.

* Late race registration: Quality of Life Expo, Thursday-Saturday, L.A. Convention Center.

* On the net: https://www.lamarathon.com