Cherie Turner: The Over 50, Sub 20, 5k Project: Part 1, Setting the Baseline

At 53 years old, Women's Running Stories host Cherie Turner has found a whole new focus for her running pursuits: she's working toward breaking 20 minutes in the 5km. This is the first phase of the journey, setting a baseline 5k time.

In this episode Cherie shares how she got to this point, how the lessons she's learned throughout her many years of running are starting to reap benefits she's never felt before, and how she's as excited as ever to push her limits as an athlete. She briefly traces her running journey through to a recent 5k effort that both surprised her and set the jumping off point for this project.

Cherie has been running for years, and has primarily focused on longer distances, like the marathon and ultras. She started running after years of bicycle racing, where she'd earned her way on to a professional domestic team. As the years rolled on, the messaging that she absorbed was: you get slower as you age, so run longer.

But in Cherie's heart of hearts, she's always known that her strong suit was short, intense racing. So, she's decided to decrease the mileage and up the speed. While she's had incredible experiences throughout all of her running pursuits, Cherie decided going into 2023 that after running the Boston Marathon in April and then the 56-mile Comrades Marathon on June 11, she was going to close this long-distance chapter on her running.

A primary interest for this project is to contribute to the growing number of examples of aging woman athletes showing what's possible, as well as fun, rewarding, and exciting.

So was created the Over 50, Sub 20, 5k project. The journey starts here.

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